Looking towards the vast horizon, Julie waited for the right moment. She and her star gazing buddy, Matt, adjusted the telescope then checked their charts and notes.
"Is it time yet?," asked Matt, a slim boy of fifteen.
"Yeah," replied sixteen-year old Julie.
"According the almanac, we should be able to get a good glimpse of Mars around 8:15. Saturn rises around 8:30."
It was now 8:10 and the two junior astronomers peered through the scope in awesome wonderment. Standing out in that open field not far from their suburban subdivision, the kids took turns looking through the scope, each marvelling at the sights before them.
"Look, Matt," said Julie, "you can see the moon's craters really good."
Matt took his turn at the telescope. As he described what he saw, Julie wrote down observations in her notebook.
Matt said, "Hey, Julie, come here and get a look at Mars. You can see the red parts."
It went like this for nearly an hour. After getting a third look at Saturn, the kids decided to wrap their star gazing session. It was getting late and they promised their parents they would be in before ten.
Taking one last look through the telescope, Matt had hoped to catch another glimpse of Saturn's rings, but he saw something disturbing. Drawing his eye from the scope, Matt squinted and shook his head. "Nah, it can't be..."
Julie caught this, asking, "Can't be what, Matt?"
"Look at this!"
Putting her eye to the scope, Julie saw what Matt saw and gasped, "I see strange lights! They're all green and red."
"Yeah," answered Matt, "and they're shaped funny, too."
Odd, thought the kids, as they scanned the sky with their naked eyes, there were no planes overhead. So what were those lights?
"You think it could be UFO's?," asked Julie apprehensively.
Matt said, "I wouldn't doubt it; we've never seen anything like this."
"Matt, I'm scared. What are we gonna tell our folks? Would they believe it?"
"I don't know. Maybe we should call the press or something. Maybe we could..."
A loud burp accompanied by raucous laughter disrupted Julie and Matt's conversation. Up from behind strolled Chase, a seventeen year old jock with a taste for practical jokes.
"UFOs?," he mockingly said. "Boy, are you two stupid! I knew you'd fall for my 'fake lights' trick!"
Chase laughed even harder while taking a few more hits from his beer can. He produced his laptop with a Powerpoint light show he concocted just hours before. He even showed them how it worked, displaying the same lights the kids saw just moments ago.
"See? All I had to do was project this baby and – Voila! Yougeeks fell for it!"
"Chase, that wasn't funny!," screamed Julie. Rejoined Matt, "Yeah, man, you scared us. We really thought it was UFOs."
Looking disgusted, Julie packed the now-dismantled telescope into its case. "Come on, Matt. We better get back."
"Aww, come on, Julie," said Chase, "can't you guys take a joke?"
After Matt and Julie left, Chase remained out in that field just long enough to finish his beer. He looked up in the sky and saw the usual stuff.
"Heck, it's nothing but a bunch of stars and stuff. Those two losers need to get a life."
Tossing the empty beer can to the ground, Chase walked across the field towards home. Taking one last look upwards, Chase swore he saw lights dancing against the vast starry sky. He squinted and said, "Huh? Strange lights? Nah! It's probably the searchlights from the drive-in down the road."
Shrugging, he resumed his journey home, not knowing that a beam of greenish red light aimed downwards at his beefy frame. In an instant it engulfed Chase then ascended into the heavens, leaving nothing behind but the boy's still-smoking shoes.
Copyright©2003 by P.R. Parker