At a travel show, Lili meets Betty, a veteran travel agent whose family once guided extraterrestrial tourists across the American Southwest. Betty recalls how a childhood encounter with flying saucers grew into a lucrative business—until an Air Force pilot attacked one of their alien clients.
Lili was holding a lunch box and looking toward the noon-break area at the travel show “Exotic Destinations.” The middle-aged travel agents chatting there ignored her, but a tall Black woman with snow-white hair waved.
Lili had noticed the woman attending a session on extraterrestrial-highway tourism. She walked over and asked, “Can I join you?”
“Indeed,” said the woman. “My name is Betty, with an e at the end. I noticed you during the Extraterrestrial Highway session.”
“I’m Lili. Two l’s, two i’s, and no y’s. I saw you there. What did you think of their alien experience?” She sat down and unpacked her lunch.
“A lot has changed since I was younger,” Betty said. “My parents just wanted to see flying saucers on their long journey across the deserts of the Southwest. Now we have cheesy roadside attractions with cartoon aliens waving outside the door.”
Intrigued, Lili asked, “What was it like back then?”
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“In the ’60s, flying saucers were a mystery. Everyone wanted to see flying saucers. Dad was an Air Force mechanic, and pilots told him they had seen saucers. The Byrds used to sing about hitchhiking to saucers. Dad was always looking for saucers.”
“Will your story help sell tours?” Lili asked.
“It helps sell Route 66 tours.”
“I wish I had a travel story, but my parents were too poor to take vacations after they emigrated from Hong Kong.”
Betty grinned. “Oh, we loved talking about finding flying saucers, but we had to be careful not to scare anyone.”
“Oh …” Lili said, trying to encourage her to continue.
Betty’s first flying saucer
Betty leaned back and sipped her iced tea.
“The first time I saw a saucer was when we were driving through the desert. Our old station wagon didn’t have air conditioning, so Dad drove at night. The moon was bright, and we could see the foothills and the cacti. I fell asleep but woke up when Dad stopped. Mom and Dad whispered as they parked a short distance away.
“I pointed to a moonlit saucer. Its hatch opened, and two aliens came out and walked toward us. Mom said we should go, but the car wouldn’t start. They were wearing light-green suits and holding a metal box that looked like an old telephone. I waved at them.”
“Were you scared?”
“A little,” said Betty. “Then the box started speaking English, like what I heard on the radio. I was giggling, and Mom shushed me.”
“What did they say?”
“They wanted us to fly a plane over the mountains and show them the sights. Dad laughed and said our car couldn’t fly. They said their car could fly, and they paid us to be their guides. Mom was scared because she had never been on a plane before, but Dad and I had a lot of fun. After we landed, one of the aliens asked whether we could guide other aliens on their trip.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, that’s right. My dad took me there, and we had a great time guiding the alien tour. They were very friendly, and the money they paid us sent me to college.”
“It was a very successful business,” Lili said. “How long did that last?”
An encounter with the Air Force
Betty nodded. “A few years later, a saucer came too close to an Air Force base. The base’s pilot jumped into a fighter jet and flew toward us. Dad told the aliens to fly away because the jet might shoot us down, but their voice box said, ‘Civilized humans don’t do that.’”
“What happened?”
“The fighter jet fired a missile at us. Then one of the aliens pointed something at the missile, and it disappeared. The other alien pointed a box at the plane and made it move with what he called a force field. He landed the plane on the road. The pilot opened the door and fled, and we watched the alien melt the plane.”
Source: www.nature.com
