The Road to Roswell

by Connie Willis

There are three kinds of extraterrestrials,” the man explained. “Grays—those are the ones you see in the movies with the silver skin, big heads, and almond-shaped eyes—and Reptilians—they’re worse than the Grays, they want to take over Earth—and Venusians. They’re tall and blond and look outwardly human, but you can tell they’re aliens because they just feel wrong. The sight of them makes your skin crawl.”

The sign read Roswell—Dairy Center of the Southwest, as if the town fondly hoped that was what it was famous for.

Russell says UFOs generate thunderstorms. There was a thunderstorm the night of the first Roswell crash and the night of the Socorro crash.”

“Klaatu barada nikto.” “What’s that?” Francie asked. “What the alien in The Day the Earth Stood Still said. It means ‘Please don’t destroy us.’ ”

“On Hynek’s scale,” he said. “He made a scale for all the different levels of alien contact. The visual sighting of a UFO is an encounter of the first kind, physical evidence is the second kind, seeing an EBE is the third kind—” “EBE?” “Extraterrestrial biological entity,” he said. “Abduction’s the fourth kind, taking you up to their ship and interrogating you.

“You know, I’ve never understood the whole probing thing,” Wade said. “I mean, why would an advanced civilization, capable of faster-than-light travel, come all the way across the galaxy just to sexually molest the natives?”

“That’s another thing that’s never made sense. Why would an advanced civilization travel all the way across the galaxy to torture a harmless cow? Don’t they have any innocent creatures of their own they could mutilate? And why come to Earth? We’re in the middle of nowhere, cosmically speaking, all the way out on an insignificant arm of the galaxy that’s about as populated as this part of the country is. There’s just no reason for them to come to a backwater one-horse planet like Earth when they could go to the galactic equivalent of Tokyo. Or Paris.”

“Dead man’s hand,” Eula Mae said. “Wild Bill Hickok was holding aces and eights when he was shot in the back,”

“I told him it’s the code cowboys live by. Never shoot first. Be hospitable to strangers. Be loyal to your partner. When you make a promise, keep it.”