Josh Brady was excited as he flipped on his cell phone to call. "John, hey bro, Josh here. Just got word that they are coming here tonight. Meet you at Sally's, okay? Around nine-ish. You gottta be there. This is big... Later."

They came like the backside of the Moon. Like from a parallel universe. Through a wormhole? It didn't matter. They arrived. It didn't matter whether the journey had been long or short, what mattered was that they had arrived from a distant part of the Milky Way Galaxy unseen and unheard. Although a few felt their presence deep in the DNA, most did not.

They weren't pleased. Unfolding before them like layers of an onion, they peeled back the history of Earth and discovered the good and the bad of it. The good was the bountiful variety of life that flourished and battled for survival of its existence in a vast ecosystem eons old, disturbed only infrequently by geological and astronomical events. All of this seemed to add to the great variety and bounty of life forms in the soil, in the water, on the surface, and in the air. They flocked to the visions of them, as soon as they were perceived. The bad were also perceived. There was a dirty ring around the planet that wasn't caused by volcanic activity, dust storms, earthquakes, or the like. Earthlings caused the ring, the only discernible technologically intelligent life on the planet.

They quickly determined the obvious. Earthlings had overstepped their bounds. For some curious reason, Earthlings continued to multiply long after they had reached a sustainable living in their place of birth. They also noticed the degradation of the planet's rich biosphere. In places, it was obvious that life could no longer sustain rich growth and variety and was dying out. These Earthlings were smart enough to conquer almost all the living spaces of their Earth, and had even visited their single Moon, but seemed incapable of controlling their numbers and the destruction they were bringing to their land, air, and water. These Earthlings seemed to be doomed to self-destruction unless drastic measures were taken. These creatures were empowered by both an individualistic drive to excel and also a real need to group together in a way that the individualistic mind wished to group... not very logical. These survival-based drives were deeply ingrained and difficult to change.

It was obvious what to do. The Earthlings had already decided. It was just a matter of carrying out their plan.

Joshua Brady was obsessed. Ever since he read War of the Worlds in the third grade, he was interested in all things alien. So obsessed, in fact, that he moved to Roswell, New Mexico soon after high school to pursue a life in UFOology. Okay, so it wasn't a science, but he had himself a webpage on Facebook, and he got a lot of hits from friends and such and they had a lot of discussions and chats about how the aliens had landed in 1947 and how the government had covered it up and now there were two whole TV channels just dedicated to trying to find out what was behind the cover-up. Something told Josh to go out there tonight. You know, where they landed. Just to be sure that place wouldn’t spook him out, he invited two of his best friends, John Lopez, and Tim Hardesty. First, they met at Sally's Cantina for a few Coronas before heading out to the site. Suspecting something was up; Josh dragged his feet until closing time.

"Come on, it's getting late. It won't hurt to get out there early, will it?" Tim was getting a little antsy waiting for Josh to get going. Tim had to get to work in the morning.

"Josh, you can't drive. Hell, neither can I." John laughed that silly little chuckle that signaled he was drunk as they all staggered out of Sally's anyway and piled into Brady's pickup. It didn't matter at that point that Josh was behind the wheel. DUI or not, they were headed for destiny.

It was just a few miles to that desolate landing site. They drove in silence until they arrived at that very spot where it all happened so many years before. As Josh pulled the truck off the road and onto the shoulder and stopped, Hardesty, the most inpatient of the bunch, quipped, "Now what?

"I don't know. I just had a premonition, you know, like they told me to come. You guys should be grateful that I included ya." That shut everybody up. They just waited in silence.

Soon, they saw a light on the western horizon. It grew and grew until it became like a meteor, flaming toward them. But the light wasn't flaming, and momentarily turned into many lights on a fast-moving silvery craft that crashed in the desert before them. The impact was loud and a deep groove was cut in the desert landscape. Josh and his companions all jumped from the pickup and ran to the site, burning in the desert night. The silver spacecraft was red in some places, like molten metal. Josh ran back to the pickup, opened his spare tire compartment, and grabbed a tire iron. When he got back to the crash, Tim and John were still standing back because of the heat given off by the craft. In a spot where the metal was still silvery, Josh spotted what he thought was a hatch by thin lines on the fuselage. He began frantically stabbing at that fine crack trying to get purchase to pry it open. He wasn't succeeding, when it suddenly levitated and floated off all by itself. The opening emitted a green glow, just like the movies. All three men nearly peed in their pants as a translucent gray globe of a head appeared with almond shaped glowing yellow eyes, two holes for ears, and two small holes for nostrils.

The creature was obviously straining against Earth's gravity and trying frantically to get out of the ship that was probably very hot inside. As the alien bobbed its head from side to side the creature stared directly into Josh's eyes as he completed the swing of his tire iron and it entered the translucent head like jelly. A bolt of lightning traveled down the tire iron and engulfed all three men. In an instant, they were vaporized. And then the spacecraft, their pickup, and everything but a slight burning smell disappeared forever from the desert night.

Marco Savoy had had a wild streak in his youth and pretended to be a hippie. However, as he grew older he saw the error of his ways and joined the family business. Knowing well the fate of most Mafioso, he kept a low profile, wishing not to rise too high in the ranks so that his family would be cared for rather than the other option. Deeply religious since his youth, Marco had even had an audience with the Pope. Regardless of which way the government turned, to the right or to the left, Marco felt that the church was on his side and that the family would always come out on the right side of the money and the law.

On this evening, Marco had a simple premonition. He thought that he would see God. This seemed strange because Marco was in relatively good health and hadn't been praying for anything in particular lately. After dinner, he retired to his study with an extra glass of his favorite Sangiovese, and opened the Bible and read from it just be sure. Marco was reading in the New Testament how the disciple, Thomas, had doubted the presence of Jesus, when he heard the doorbell ring. Checking his surveillance cameras, Marco could see a young man in long hair and some kind of wool tunic standing on the steps of his brownstone. Curiously, the dirty looking young man held a rough woven rope tied to a burro or donkey. Now, Marco had seen hippies, Jesus freaks and the like since he was one of them, but this took the cake. He decided to humor the intruder and see what he was up to.

Checking carefully his monitors once more to see that no more people were out there to waylay him, Marco carefully opened the door. When the young man saw Marco, his eyes lit up and he appeared to have a glowing halo above his head. Before Marco could say anything, the young man spoke up, "I am Holy of Holies, Son of the Lord God. Please take my hand and I will lead you to the Promised Land."

Now Marco wasn't born yesterday and he wasn't going to fall for some prank by some hippie freak. In his harshest voice, Marco laid into the meek-looking stranger at his door. "Listen to me, if you think I'm going to believe that bullshit you've got another thing coming. What do you think you are, coming to my house in the middle of the night feeding me such crap?"

The young man bowed down deeply as if to pray, tears came to his eyes as he beseeched Marco. "Please, please. You must believe and you must come with me."

"Tell you what I'll go and do. I'm going to make you disappear." Marco reached in his pocket, pulled out his billfold, and found a $10 bill. "Here, take this money, leave my doorstep, and don't come back... ever!" There was a tone to his voice that suggested that Marco would not be above using force.

A chill wind came up and the $10 bill floated to the stairs and mixed with fallen leaves. The young man turned his back on Marco, pulled on the rope to the donkey, and disappeared with it. Marco disappeared, too, along with his house and his family. Everywhere in New York City and its suburbs, gaping holes were found where buildings had once stood.

Jodi Hollingsworth had seen them. She often told the story to family and friends how she had been abducted by aliens and terribly violated... that was why she was never able to conceive a child, or for that matter, stay married. Jodi had married four times. Each time her incessant whining about why she couldn't have sex ended in a not so friendly, divorce. As usual, Jodi bowled late with her team from work. Unfortunately, her Thursday night drive home through the country passed that same place every time. This time, something was different, Jodi sensed it. It may have been a tingling in her fingertips and toes, but instead came along gradually as she drove the wandering road through fields and trees. It was an orgasm, tiny at first, but gradually building as she approached that spot. How strange? Jodi thought, until she crested the hill and saw it, just above the trees, ahead.

What Jodi saw was a massive ship, much larger than the one she had seen before, still saucer shaped, but looming over the road and the trees on either side with many more colored lights and spotlights searching the trees and road as if looking for a hiding suspect. The ship was looking for her—she knew it. Jodi reached full orgasm as the lights locked on her car, the engine stopped, and the driver's side window automatically rolled down while her seatbelt popped open and she was levitated out the window to the spacecraft above. A portal opened up and hideous creatures in white coats greeted her and guided her to, what appeared to be, a white operating table. All kinds of instruments came out of nowhere from above and began probing and poking her. Some entered her body with excruciating pain that somehow brought her orgasm to a height she couldn't imagine. She thought she would die, and she did.

Mohammed Akbar Moustafa was about to kneel down for evening prayer when someone knocking on his front door rudely interrupted him. Disgusted, Akbar went to the door and opened the trapdoor to look out through the lattice at the intruder. It was a smallish man with a black beard and piercing eyes covered by a white robe and turban. He wore a crimson sash with a large skimmer thrust in it

Akbar threw open his door and demanded an explanation. "Who are you, young man, to interrupt my prayer at my door?"

"I am Mohamed, The Enlightened One and your humble servant, come to take you to the mountain."

"You, are Mohamed? How am I to believe that? Get out of here before I call the police."

"I can easily prove that I am Mohamed, but you will not like it."

"Go ahead, I'm late for my prayers."

Mohammed, in one lightning fast move, pulled his Scimitar from his sash and cut off Akbar's head. Blood spurting from the cut artery in Akbar's neck colored the dust of the street. The desert wind blew the sand and Akbar’s home into oblivion.

Not far away, an F-117 Stealth Fighter is running reconnaissance over Afghanistan. Commander and pilot is José "Taco" Navarro. Copilot is Richard "Flash" Gordon. An unidentified blip suddenly appears on the radar screen, flying straight toward them at unbelievable speed. Taco immediately rises to the occasion and calls out, "This is Air Force 24. Unknown aircraft approaching please identify yourself."

"We come in peace... we come in peace... we come in peace..." like a broken record, was all they got back.

"Recon Center, do you copy? Do you see the unidentified?"

"Recon Center 5 here. We copy. We see the bogey at Mach 10, heading straight for you. Strange message."

The strain is obvious in Taco's voice as he requests, "Do we engage?"

"We have less than one minute to impact—engage." Flash yelled. He was scared and serious. There was no time for error. The UFO was coming too fast.

Over the alarms flashing and Recon Center 5 screaming, "Engage! Engage! Engage..." Taco had no choice but to fire four of his rockets point blank into the rapidly approaching UFO.

Taco had second thoughts about firing on a ship calling out, "We come in peace," especially one that could fly Mach 10 and probably turn on a dime. But it was too late. The UFO disappeared just as the missiles were about to strike. All four missiles turned 180° and came back on them.

"Dive! Dive!" Flash yelled as Taco put the fighter into a steep dive and let the computer take over as he braced for the G forces to come. They flattened out in a valley 100 feet above the ground. Both pilots passed out as the blood left their brains. Two of the missiles exploded harmlessly into the ground. The climb was so sudden that both pilots never regained consciousness to eject. A heat-seeking missile caught up, flew up the exhaust, and blew Air Force 24 to smithereens.

And so the culling continued at Earthly bidding until the Earth was free of those who would harm it with their own death wishes. The remaining inhabitants were taught to follow the enlightened path and the planet gradually became pristine and beautiful again.

8/1/09