It Came from the Sky Read online

  The Mothman Sightings (Point Pleasant, West Virginia, 1966–1967): For more than a year, countless locals spot a winged, manlike creature around town. No explanation is ever found—though some claim the Mothman was an extraterrestrial.

  Over the years there have been instances of mass fainting spells, of teens being “possessed by Satan,” of people losing the ability to walk or speak. In one case in the Middle Ages, all the nuns in a convent spontaneously began meowing like cats.

  In some occurrences of mass hysteria, like the Halifax Slasher, the events were undoubtedly faked. Other episodes were less clear. Were people being deceptive, or did they truly believe they were experiencing symptoms?

  And if they believed it, even if that belief was false, did that make it the truth or a lie?

  Event: The Next Step

  Date: Oct. 1 (Sun.)

  I sat in the swivel chair in my lab, head tilted back, gazing at the low ceiling. Kepler twisted around my feet, and I absently reached down to scratch his head.

  “Kepler,” I said. “The hoax is flourishing. Maybe I should consider it a success. I created something that can sustain itself independently. If God exists, isn’t that what he did when he created the world?”

  Kepler purred but didn’t offer further input.

  It must be so simple to be a cat. Part of me envied it. How comforting to think of nothing but food and sleep. But it was a vague envy. I’d never trade places with Kepler. I wouldn’t abandon the complex structure of the human mind and willingly relegate myself to being a cat—or a starfish.

  “On the other hand,” I went on, “without me actively dictating the course of events, can I truly take credit for them?”

  The door to the lab flew open and Ishmael sauntered in. He looked around. “Is someone here?”

  My face heated. “I was just…”

  He glanced down at Kepler. “Talking to the cat?”

  “Well. Yes.”

  Ishmael shrugged. He plopped on the folding chair, and Kepler quickly made himself scarce.

  “How was Oz?”

  “Hard at work on his elixir. Apparently, the aliens contacted him about the ingredients. He’ll unveil the product soon.”

  Ishmael screwed his face up in contemplation. “How’s he doing it so fast?”

  “Because, Ishmael, the ‘formula’ is probably sugar water.”

  “Ah, right. Do you want to know about my reconnaissance mission? I took notes like you wanted.”

  “Sure.”

  Ishmael handed me a sheet of paper. I sighed at the sight of his messy scrawl and began the process of deciphering it.

  Ishmael’s Intel

  Okay Im taking notes like you want but dont blame me if you cant read my writing.

  • Hayden who works at Adrenaline X-treme with me: saw lights 2 times, 1st was on her way home from work at like 9 near her neighborhood. 2nd time she was leaving her boyfriends house at midnight and the light was right above her and she told him to come look so he saw too.

  • Some guy by the lava lamp, he said his name, but I forget: saw 1 ufo the first night he was in town, 3 nights ago. Also saw an alien face in the lava lamp and said maybe it wasnt ever a tourist attraction but actually is filled with some alien preservative or something? I didnt really know what he was talking about and he creeped me out so I left.

  • Mr Blake from the pharmacy: saw lights in the sky 3 times, a ufo 2 times and once the ufo had a beam of light shoot down.

  • Gram: saw a ufo once. Grams for sure lying. I mean everyones lying. But gram especially.

  Matthew and Ethan from school: both saw lights a bunch of times and ethan had missing time once and matthew said streetlights keep turning off when he walks under them, so maybe theyve been abducted. They also said Isabel, that girl on the student council, was abducted and shes shaken up about it, and Joaquin from the basketball team was abducted but he told Matthew and Ethan it was really cool and not scary.

  • Sofia: says her abductions keep happening over and over and I guess all these people in the play with her (mice or something?) all have abduction stories too which is fine with Sofia as long as hers is the best.

  • Old Mrs. Callahan: I wasnt even going to ask her anything cuz everyone knows she likes to tell stories to mess with people. But she grabbed me and told me all about her abductions that have been happening since she was 20 and how she always knew Lansburg had aliens. I know shes kinda senile, but shes been talking to a bunch of reporters, fyi.

  • A bunch of guys at the bar: I guess theyre in some club called muffon? I dont know. Anyway there were like 5 of them and they all saw lights and 3 saw a flying saucer and 1 had lost time and keeps having dreams about owls watching him. They had more stuff to say but the bartender noticed me and kicked me out cuz Im underage.

  Okay I know you wanted lots of details but my hand hurts from writing so much. Can we just say there are a lot of people who saw ufos and stuff? Do you really need to know every single one?

  Event: The Next Step (Cont.)

  “Well,” I said, staring at Ishmael’s sloppy report, “you made an attempt.”

  “Dude, practically everyone’s had some sort of alien experience,” he said, ignoring my lackluster tone.

  “What about the skeptics?”

  “Well, they haven’t seen UFOs.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Obviously. But what are they saying?”

  Ishmael shrugged. “They won’t believe anything unless they see it themselves.”

  I thought about that.

  “Is there any way we could, you know…build a UFO?”

  I gave my brother a long look that should’ve accurately established my feelings. But still, I said, “No, Ishmael. No, I cannot build a spacecraft.” (Note: this might have been possible with a sizable increase in funds.)

  “What about lights?”

  I rubbed my eyes and considered. “Maybe something with drones? I don’t know.”

  “What’s wrong? You seem stressed.”

  “I suppose I’m wondering what exactly we’re doing,” I admitted.

  “Uh, I thought we were doing the best senior prank ever.”

  “No, Ishmael, that’s what you’re doing.” I thought for a moment, then asked, “Why do you love practical jokes so much?”

  Ishmael frowned. Maybe he hadn’t pondered his motivations before. I knew he acted on impulse, but part of me figured he still lay awake at night, running through his actions and trying to derive meaning from them. That’s what I assumed everyone did.

  “I dunno. That’s just who I am.”

  “No one is born a clown.”

  “Practical jokes are fun. They make the world happier.”

  I snorted.

  “Seriously. There’s all this dark stuff, you know?” Ishmael ran his fingers through his hair, searched for words. “Like…there’re so many murders and so much hate. Sometimes it’s nice to do things just to make people laugh or make their lives more interesting. Twenty years from now everyone will still talk about the time aliens came to their town, and maybe that way they won’t have to think about the bad stuff so much.”

  “So you’re a hero then? Swooping in to improve the lives of the small folk of Lansburg, Pennsylvania.”

  Ishmael crossed his arms. “Don’t sit there all high and mighty on your science throne, like your reasons for doing this are better than mine. I don’t even know your reasons.”

  “For glory,” I said after a slight hesitation. “I’m doing it for glory.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Where to even begin?

  “Sometimes I think about the universe—”

  Ishmael sighed.

  “Hear me out,” I insisted. “Sometimes I think about the universe, and how many galaxies are in it, and how many stars are in those galaxies. The scope of
it is beyond comprehension. When I think about that vastness, why does Earth matter? And if Earth is insignificant, everyone on Earth is insignificant too.”

  “And?”

  “And that means everything we do is inconsequential. Babies are born. People die. Some people become rich while others live in squalor. And on the cosmic level, none of it matters. I could achieve success or die in a freak accident before my seventeenth birthday, and either way, the universe is indifferent.”

  My brother frowned.

  I went on. “Why should humans even try to accomplish anything? Yet we do try, because the desire to persevere is ingrained in us. I know my success is meaningless, but I can’t stop trying.”

  Ishmael thought for a long moment. “I just… What exactly does this have to do with the hoax?”

  “Don’t you see? Even on a small scale, here on Earth, the likelihood of me accomplishing anything significant is unlikely. Honestly, Ishmael, if I was going to be one of the great minds of science, I’d already know it.”

  “But you’re so smart, dude.”

  “I read a lot of books. That’s all.”

  Ishmael opened his mouth to argue, but I wasn’t being self-deprecating. It was the truth. There was a difference between intelligence and knowledge, and I feared I only possessed the latter.

  “I’ll never be Copernicus. I’ll never be Tycho Brahe or Isaac Newton or even Carl Sagan. I’m just me,” I said. “And this hoax may not be extraordinary in the grand scheme of the cosmos. But I can use it to leverage a better future for myself. It might be the only thing that gets me close to greatness.”

  “Yeah,” Ishmael said quietly. “I get that.”

  I reached out and pounded a hand on my desk, startling Kepler in the corner. “Only the hoax isn’t ours anymore, is it? Other people took it. Oz is making an alien elixir and that’s what the press cares about. It destroys me to think of other people getting famous off this. And when you tell me about the skeptics, I don’t want to sit back and let them have their skeptical thoughts. I want to push further. I want to make them believe.”

  There was a long silence. Then Ishmael said, “Well, dude. Let’s make them believe then.”

  “How?”

  “Well, there’s always—”

  “Please don’t say cow mutilation.”

  “But you admit that would cause a—”

  “Ishmael.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands up. “Just don’t give up so easy. What would Isaac Newton do?”

  What would Isaac Newton do? Probably obsess about the Bible, try to turn lead into gold, complain about Robert Hooke, and in his spare time advance science and math a few generations (In addition to being a brilliant scientist, Isaac Newton was a devoutly religious alchemist.). Most certainly, he wouldn’t waste time on an alien hoax.

  Our alien hoax was pointless. It wouldn’t impact the universe. It wouldn’t even impact Earth.

  But still.

  It was mine.

  J. Quincy Oswald could have his alien elixir. The people shouting in the streets could have their lights in the sky. The hoax still belonged to me.

  “We need to make people take notice,” I said, my feelings of inferiority beginning to drift away.

  “What about, like, an abduction?”

  “That’s called kidnapping. It’s illegal.”

  Ishmael rolled his eyes. “No kidding. But can we abduct someone without really abducting them?”

  I suddenly sat up straighter. “Radio interference.”

  “What?”

  I opened a desk drawer and rifled through, looking for the bag of electronics I’d purchased in Pittsburgh the day of the myTality™ seminar. “We can’t abduct anyone. But we can make them think they narrowly missed being abducted. A close encounter of the second kind.”

  “Yeah, dude, that sounds awesome,” Ishmael said, perking up. “But…what does that have to do with the radio?”

  “Lots of abductions begin with car malfunctions. There’s often radio interference. We can scramble radio signals on some quiet road, and with the current climate in Lansburg, people will assume they experienced extraterrestrial activity.”

  Ishmael bounced up and down in his seat. “That’s perfect!”

  “I thought it might come to this,” I said, holding up the bag of electronics. “I already have the parts.”

  I just needed to figure out how to make them work.

  Event: Lights, Again

  Date: Oct. 2 (Mon.)

  I got back my most recent English quiz, which had a C written on it. I stared at the paper for a long time.

  “What’s wrong?” Cass—dressed like she’d stepped out of the 1980s—asked from her seat next to me.

  I held up the paper. Her eyes widened in mock horror. “Oh, my stars, are aliens hurting your grades?”

  They were. I was spending too much time reading about hoaxes and close encounters and mass hysteria. Granted, the quiz was only a small portion of our grades and we were studying poetry, a subject I’d never excel at. But I suspected I’d fallen behind in other classes too. What was wrong with me? Why was I letting a hoax become more important than school?

  Because the hoax belongs to you, whispered a voice in the back of my head. Of course it means more than randomly assigned homework.

  That didn’t matter, though. Whether or not I cared about my English assignments, I had to do them. Otherwise Sara Kang would win and I’d graduate from high school with nothing to show for the hard work I’d put in.

  At lunch, I arrived at the table first and began calculating the scores I’d need on subsequent English tests to offset the C. I was interrupted by Arden running up with wide eyes.

  “Did you get my texts?” she asked.

  “I haven’t checked my phone all day.”

  My phone had become a hassle. Thanks to the hoax, I was getting regular alien-related texts from classmates who previously only contacted me for homework “help.” (See: cheating.) Ishmael had it even worse. The difference was, Ishmael adored the attention.

  It was a paradox: I wanted to be successful and recognized for my work. But at the same time, I wanted to be left alone. Sort of like how I both thought highly of my own abilities and recognized how unimpressive those abilities actually were. When you got down to it, nearly everything about me was a contradiction. Maybe it was that way for everyone.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Arden.

  She slid into her chair. I noticed she didn’t have a lunch tray. She must have rushed over as soon as she stepped into the cafeteria.

  “I saw them,” she breathed.

  “Saw what?”

  Her face was flushed. Her eyes shone. Arden looked more animated than I’d ever seen her. “Lights, Gideon. I saw lights in the sky.”

  Oh no. Not Arden.

  I looked at her for a long moment. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Could it have been something else? A plane, maybe? Or Venus?”

  A pained expression came over Arden’s face. Her glow dimmed, her skin turning ashen as I watched.

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “It’s just…” I didn’t know how to finish, though.

  “When you saw lights, you didn’t doubt your own eyes.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And when Cass saw lights, you believed her too, didn’t you?”

  I didn’t reply, because there was no need. Arden knew I hadn’t challenged Cass’s experience.

  “So it’s just me,” Arden said. “You think I’m a liar. Or maybe you don’t think I’m important enough to be visited by aliens.”

  What the hell? “Arden, no. That has nothing to do with—”

  She turned away from me, shoulders slumped. “Just forget it.”


  This was what I deserved for lying to her. I should have included her in the hoax from day one. But how could I backtrack now? If I told her I lied, I’d also be saying I knew she was lying, and it would be too awkward to bear. By not being honest from the beginning, I’d effectively trapped myself.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, figuring the least I could do was listen to her story. “Can we start again? I really want to hear about this.”

  Arden shook her head listlessly. “Maybe some other time.”

  A moment later Cass appeared, her lunch tray loaded with food.

  “Aren’t you eating?” she asked Arden. “Here, have some of my fries. Zeus knows, I don’t need all of these.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Arden mumbled.

  “You can’t go all day without eating.”

  Arden pushed back from the table and leapt to her feet. “Stop telling me what to do,” she said, loud enough for people at nearby tables to turn. Then she stomped away, her shoulders rigid with anger.

  Cass looked at me. “Um, I kinda feel like I missed something.”

  “Accurate.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I didn’t even know anymore.

  Interview

  Subject #6, Arden Byrd: I woke up at midnight with a buzzing in my head, like my brain had turned into a million bees. Then this invisible string pulled me out of bed and over to the window. I pushed aside the curtains and the air was static and the world felt alive. There was nothing outside, though, just empty night. Then I realized my mistake. I’d looked out, when I should’ve looked up. I raised my eyes and there they were: lights dancing in the sky, twisting and turning like the aurora borealis. And in that moment, I felt like…like I’d been chosen.

  Event: Preparation

  Date: Oct. 4 (Wed.)

  I hunched over a mess of electronic components on my desk. The radio jammer was nearly finished, and soon I’d find out if I’d been successful.