Well, it’s official. Rome has come out and said, it’s ok if you believe in Aliens.

Somewhere up in heaven, my mother’s UFO detector is going off in glee.

See, I grew up in a home where “Fate” magazines strewed the living room coffee table. Mom was a BIG believer in UFO’s, even to the point of making (or rather, making dad make for her) her very own UFO detector, straight from the blue prints out of the magazine. Big ol honking battery needed to get it to work, too.

My brothers delighted in sneaking into my parent’s bedroom at night, just to set it off. Got their asses beat for it to, if I recall correctly. It didn’t stop them.

I’ve never been a big believer in aliens from outer space visiting us here on Earth, but I do believe in Unidentified Flying Objects - I’ve seen one myself. I was in the sixth grade, and we were waiting outside in line at school - waiting to go back into our classroom. But above the treeline, oh probably 300 yards away, ever so slowly and ever so silently, flew your classic, silver, cigar-shaped flying object. All of us saw it. But of course, by the time the teacher came out, it was gone.

Now my dad was a pilot, and I’d been around airplanes all my life. I knew what an airplane looked like, sounded like, what it could and could not do. That was no airplane. What was it? Heck if I know.

Like I said, I’m not a big believer in aliens visiting us, but my sisters are. And after my divorce, many years ago, they decided I needed to get out of the house for awhile, and took me to a UFO convention, in Gulf Breeze, Florida, where a bunch of UFO sightings took place.

I’m sure having three military bases nearby had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with those sightings.

But, you know, I love my sisters, and any excuse to get out of the house is a good one. Especially if they were paying for it.

We’re talking - BIG UFO conference, too, with all the big players, Whitley Streiber, the guy who wrote “Communion,” that grey haired bearded guy who’s the expert on Roswell, some Harvard professor who had some very scary video clips of interviews of some South African kids, who had some aliens land in their school yard. *shivers* That hit just a little too close to home.

The neatest part was getting a kirilian photograph showing my aura, which was pretty neat. It’s mostly yellow, by the way. I didn’t come away from the conference convinced that we were being visited by aliens, but I did come away convinced that the people who claimed to be abducted, who claimed to have met aliens, believed it themselves, sincerely. They weren’t faking in their conviction. Whether that was because it truly happened, or because they were deluding themselves, I can’t say.

I do know that I have always been fascinated by the stars, hell I grew up in the sixties - I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up! And I think it would be rather arrogant to believe that in the vastness of the universe, we’re the only ones. I think God would have much fun tinkering all over the place.

Still does, probably.