That it came from outer space was obvious. None of the markings were familiar and it looked, in the words of Dr. Nerdham Glassstein, “weird”. It could do things men had only dreamed of. Most of those dreams were drug-induced.

Speak in front of it and it would repeat what you said in every known language and a bunch of unknown ones. That one certain word seemed to sound the same each time. Maybe, said Dr. Glasssstein, “there’s a common thread to life.”

Trying to get into the ship, or vehicle, or thing was the hard part. There was no opening. There was no place that seemed to have a seam. No buttons, no handles, no anything. Dr. Glassstein got it open by saying, “Open”.

His second-in-command, General Henry Cummins, snorted, “Some security. Didn’t even lock the thing”.

They both went in to look at the find. The first thing they noticed was the smell. It was a light, perfumy odor. It was coming from the corpses. Dr. Glasssstein thought that was a lot better than the stench that came from humans decay. Gen. Cummins hated it. Nothing beats the smell of a day-old ripe killed enemy soldier unless it was the cordite.

The “creatures” looked a lot like humans except they had no arms, no legs and, Gen. Cummins checked this out, no genitalia. Cummins hooted at this last one. Dr. Glassstein theorized that they were so advanced they didn’t need arms or legs or genitalia. Gen. Cummins told him that he wasn’t snorting at the need.

They looked into what they presumed was the crew’s quarters. It was a simple set-up. Four hooks on the wall. That’s it. It puzzled Dr. Glassstein but not Gen. Cummins. “It’s probably some S&M thing, the alien freaks.”

There didn’t seem to be a food supply or any bathroom facility. Cummins, true to his nature, said they probably, “dumped it into space. Not criticizing, just remarking”.

There was a large map twinkling in one room. It looked like a map of the universe to Dr. Glassstein. It looked like one of those testing machines eye doctors use to Gen. Cummins. Dr. Glassstein touched the screen and it zoomed in. He kept touching it until our system came into view. Then Earth showed up.

“Wonder what those tiny black x’s are for?”, Dr. Glassstein asked.

“Might be all our military installations. These could have been scout for some alien freaks wanting to invade us”.

“Wait! This one is marked with a gold-colored arch. it almost looks like-”, Dr. Glassstein started to say.

“Well, I’ll be an enlisted man, or woman, it’s a tourist map. These goofs are tourists. Well, shoot. Guess Disney is going to really make out. Damn!”

At Disney they were still waiting for their new ride, Freaks From Outer Space, to arrive.