Yup, I saw them land, eh, fifteen years ago. Susan was three and Johnny was still in the oven. Big light show over the old Gordon’s farm. I left Maria with Susan and five or six of us drove out there with our hunting rifles ready to fight the ‘Martians’ and send em packing. Everyone was waiting at the front gate for enough of guns to show up. I was the last one there and I guess I was enough cause Lonnie opens the gate and we all start walking up the long driveway to the farmhouse.
This whole time the lights had been swirling around lighting up the farm and everything for a couple of miles. Suddenly the lights cut off leaving us in the dark. None of us had brought flashlights or lanterns. So we stumble on up to the farmhouse in the dark except the farmhouse isn’t dark. It’s got lights on, regular lights inside like someone’s living there. The porch light’s on too and we can see a new four-door pick-up parked up front.
I don’t know about the rest of those fellows but I started feeling a little foolish standing outside a neighbor’s house with a hunting rifle. I’m about to turn around and head back to my truck when the front door opens and a skinny gray alien with a big bald walks out. It’s wearing pants and a flannel shirt. Rob starts to raise his gun but Josie slaps it down.
After a minute, I can’t take the silence and start rambling, “Hi neighbor, you just move in? We saw the lights and thought the Martian Army had landed. Do you come in peace?” The alien smiles and shows off its pointy teeth. Rob starts raising his gun again and Josie pushes it back down again. Then it started talking.
“Well howdy neighbors. Nice to meet you. So sorry about the lights but it won’t happen again. It’s just me and my mate here now. We’re planning on farming corn.” Lonnie laughs and the alien stops smiling and squints something fierce at him. “Did I say something funny?”
Now back then we didn’t know these aliens squint when they ask a question. To us, it looked like the alien was mad at Lonnie. I step in front of Lonnie and start rambling again, “Not at all. Lonnie didn’t mean anything mean by laughing. Did you Lonnie?”
“Not at all. I just got tickled thinking about this little guy farming corn,” Lonnie says. Everyone gives a little chuckle now that they’re thinking about it too. And that is when my water broke.
Everyone, human and alien, just stares at the wet ground. They all knew what that meant. Well, the alien didn’t but everyone else knew. Then the first contraction hit. Josie took charge and before I knew it I was in the back seat of the alien’s truck being driven to the hospital. The alien kept looking back at me and Josie kept yelling for it to keep its eyes on the road. It had a lot of questions about human reproduction, I really wasn’t in the mood to answer them but Josie has a couple rugrats of her own so she filled in the alien on what I was going through.
At the hospital, we decided it would be better if the alien stayed in the truck. I didn’t see it again until the next day when Rob and Josie snuck it into the room to see baby Johnny. By that time the others had had time to talk to the alien and while a few were still a little wary they were convinced it and its mate just wanted to live in peace and grow corn.
We’re a small community and it wouldn’t be right to shun a fellow farmer so we did our best welcome them. There was a little upset in their third year when the government showed up. Probably because Alien Bob started flying around with a “phased energy array generator” mounted on the back of its truck. Alien Bob was using it to disrupt tornadoes from forming. I bet it was those storm chasers that got pissed off because there were no tornadoes to chase.
Luckily by that point, Alien Bob and Alien Javier had “combined genetic information” and “incubated an offspring” which meant they had an “anchor baby” when immigration showed up. We all chipped in and got them a good lawyer. Their lawyer was able to argue that Alien Baby Daria was a citizen since the Constitution doesn’t exclude extraterrestrial aliens. They had work visas a year later and green cards several years later. We’re not sure if they’ll ever get sworn in as citizens but they’ll be our neighbors for as long as they want to be.