Bonnybridge, UFOs and Phobias

Okay… So I had intended on posting more frequently than I have done in the past week or so. This is mostly the fault of Bonnybridge UFOs. I had intended on doing a bit of research about the subject for a post on here. I even created a special folder where I would save links to all the articles. And I expected to have too many to work with.

Well I guess that was my first mistake. There was a lot “casebook UFOlogy” with articles of about two hundred words with the odd “locals report” and other assorted vagueness. Not that that’s not without its entertainment value. I mean… there’s a lot of hicks around the world going: “Yeah man, there’s aliens over there…” without actually bothering to supply proof.

There was so little content that I was thinking (seriously) about putting on my V: The Mini Series Reptile Mask and uploading a youtube feature as follows:

“Greetings Puny Humans! I am Stragputh from the Garleg Federation and I come to bring you hate from the Garlegites. YOU SHALL ALL PERISH unless you cede us the town of Bonnybridge as a breeding ground for our hatchlings! Commit or you shall all pay! Mwahahahahahahah.” Etc.

Now, since I’ve obviously decided to post on this anyway, without a great deal of research (not my fault, that’s the internet and it’s obsession with having a porn rate of 69%) and not enough serious articles.

There are three possibilities regarding Aliens flying over Scotland.

1. It isn’t aliens. It’s people being stupid. And not just your banal ordinary stupid, but dog-chasing-a-car-from-the-front stupid. They’re tries-to-use-icecream-as-a-lubricant dumb.
2. It IS aliens, and they’re here to invade
3. It IS aliens, and they’re here in the name of science

Point three scares me more than the rest, because the others I can get my head around. But if aliens are using Bonnybridge as a scientific study then I want to be on the next space-shuttle to complain to the Galactic Council. Mind you, it could be worse. They could choose Airdrie and concur that: “Sire, all humans are around five foot tall, communicate through their noses and based on a recent translation of their clothes are apparently called the ‘La Coste’ people and celebrated seeing our craft with outbreaks of xenophobia and in-breeding.”

I was also thinking, after seeing Bebo cluttered with people being scared of being abducted by aliens, that perhaps they’re not the crazy ones. Go with me on this. Compare their phobia with mine: Arachnophobia versus Alien Abduction fear (Duchuvnophobia?)

All you need for life is a Sun, and the universe has plenty of them; Water, which is just Hydrogen and Oxygen, and there’s plenty of that; and a rock close enough for it to be ‘just right’, and there’s more than enough debris scattered. So yeah, chances are there’s a planet with life. Maybe it could build Stargate-like spaceships, and maybe they get their kicks from abducting blonde girls. I know I do… Oh shit…

Now… my phobia, which is to prefer to chuck books across the room at spiders rather than actually touch them, makes less sense.

Let’s say that there’s a spider in my bathroom. My brain turns on its fear response. What my brain has assumed is that there is an undiscovered type of spider in the Amazonian Rainforest which is so deadly it can kill painfully and within the time it would take me to run to the phone (shrieking with pain as I did so, obviously). My brain has then assumed that this super-poisonous spider (which, by the way, bears a striking resemblance to a money spider) has made the colossal leap from Rainforest tree to a piece of driftwood on the Amazonian driftwood where it survived on a diet of grubs until it reached the ocean. Whilst this deadly spider wielding piece of driftwood, I also have to assume the spider has access to enough grubs until it washes up onto a beach on the Bahamas, washed along by the general tides and such. It decides not to munch on the middle-class Edinburgh people getting married on the beach (because that would just be mean) and instead heads for the nearest Banana Plantation. There, whilst munching on the bottom part of a banana, it is wrenched from the tree, put into a box and then flown and driven thousands of miles until it reaches Tesco Cumbernauld. From here, it escapes, loose, into the wild until it finds my flat. Now, I live on the top floor, so I’m not sure whether it used the stairs or the lift. I’m guessing that it used the stairs for two reasons: one, I don’t think “Hola Senor, floor seeex pleeease” coming from a tiny spider is ENTIRELY plausible; and secondly, there isn’t actually a lift service where I live. Just stairs. Miguel the Spider then crawls through the letter box and takes up residence in my bathroom, eventually to be confronted by myself.

I can usually console my abject cowardice with Spiders with the conclusion: “Oh well, at least I’m not scared of being abducted by Aliens.” Bugger. At least my phobia has an actual phobia name: Anoraknophobia. Or something. I’ve checked t’internet and can’t find one for Alien Abduction.

Back to Bonnybridge, though. I’ve heard from a few people that I know *in* the area. Well, one, actually. That there’s now rumours of big cat sightings in ra ‘Bridge. A large, Black, Cat-like creature has apparently been stalking the night and (presumably) scaring the population. I absolutely, positively, am not supposed to mention this because they’re still a bit cringe-worthy after being given the title of “UFO Capital of Scotland, damn it the whole UK, och dammit of ALL THE EU!” I’m not making this up; someone DID tell me about big cat sightings. Apparently they haven’t been reported because locals still have a collective-cringe about GMTV turning up to probe the rumours. And honestly, who’d force Fiona Phillips on their worst enemy? I bet that when the black Panther (or whatever it is) has cornered its first human victim, I’ll bet ALL the money I have that THAT person wishes at that very moment, that they’ll be abducted by aliens… Now go and tell Alanis Morrisette THAT’s what Irony is.