As an adult science fiction writer, and science nerd, I’m fascinated by the whole double-whammy UFO/alien abduction phenomenon. Parts of the phenomenon are compelling to no end, and other parts really don’t make sense…its rather like the aliens in the movie Signs revealing themselves at the end of the movie, only to show precisely why they shouldn’t have even come to Earth in the first place…ah, but the aliens in the movie Signs deserve to be wiped out; they made for a good and compelling movie with a great soundtrack, but they were stupid beyond comparison. I remember watching Signs and coming to the end of the movie only to exclaim: “Ah yes…water kills you so naturally you’re going to try to take over a planet with water in the air!” Which really sucks, because the aliens in Signs were kinda cool, and they had chameleon-like capabilities. Rather than showing off THOSE bio-technological skills, they should have invested in raincoats. Though in defense of Hollywood aliens, I have to say that the “Predators” at least had cultural reasons for being prodigious baddies, and they had dreads on top of that! In thinking of aliens, I put myself into the “role” of the alien and asked myself why I would come to Earth. I found all sorts of reasons, and some of them were good ones. Admittedly, one of those reasons involved beer, and another one involved breeding with a particular Russian. I think I can scratch those two, since I’m already on Earth and can enjoy those things…with some effort (and a visa.) Of course, alien visitation is likely to follow very alien rules of logic, and the aliens in question may not even be a real presence…they could be robots, a telepresence, or anything cheaper than a vehicle with enough fuel to get from there to here. It stands to reason, however, if they’re sufficiently alien, would we even perceive a visitation? So, with The Gimp open, and two photographs on my editing surface, I decided to just play around and leave the big questions for later. I’d taken a self portrait photograph, to serve as an eventual avatar here on Renderosity. I’d taken numerous pictures of grasshoppers, and so with a grasshopper head and my body—well, my head and a big, puffy winter coat, I decided to play. Needless to say, the grasshopper is no longer recognizable, and the vaguely insect/reptilian alien that emerged has oddly canine jowls (funny how grasshopper parts look like dog jowls when taken out of context.) I still have no real idea why alleged aliens would behave as our alleged visitors/abductors behave, and I do find it odd that the alleged aliens only seem to know only as much about science and scientific principles as those they abduct. There has yet to be an abduction account in which an abductee describes a coherent bit of “methodology”, “behavior”, or an “environmental factor” remains true to our recognition of physical reality while also proving, beyond every shadow of doubt that the event in question is something other than a probably very interesting neurological event. That’s the odd thing about the whole UFO/alien abduction phenomenon…they’re pointers to something even more bizarre than physiologically-impossible, bug-eyed guys with an extreme interest in human naughty bits. The alien here isn’t a gray…as you can see by its non-gray skin. It has rather insect-like eyes, and rather canine jowls, which (in my opinion) render it strangely “cute” in that goofy-life form sort of way. In the logic of this image, I photographed this visitor on Corey’s and his roommate’s back porch, and in the logic of this photograph, I’m very interested in the flagrant swoon such a creature would undoubtedly have provoked had Corey’s roommate seen so sensibly-dressed a being. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all in the midst of a fantastic week.