When I was writing my book Goblins I had the hardest time coming up with what the scary aliens would look like and this is because aliens really scare me. I actually wrote the whole thing and filled those details in later. I started thinking about why aliens scare me so much. I can handle almost any other supernatural entity.

I started thinking about my childhood and I remember doing a persuasive speech for an English assignment on why aliens must exist. I used the obvious statistics of how small we were in comparison to the universe and how arrogant it would be to assume we were the only intelligent beings in all of space. Then I used a picture of my little brother to demonstrate the similarities between humans and the grey aliens with the big eyes. I think I was in sixth grade when I determined that those were actually humans that had adapted to space and were trying to repopulate the species somewhere else. So part of my fear must be from believing they are real.

Then I remembered my thirteenth birthday. That day my mom actually told me that when I was small, like four years old, I told her that there were squashy faced visitors at night and they said they’d come back to visit me when I turned thirteen. She said my little sister called them the rainbow people and that something about my dad messed with television reception and kept things like that away. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep at all that night and didn’t sleep well for quite a few nights after. I have no memories of my own of any visitors but the whole being taken from your bed at night and experimented on thing is a little disconcerting.

I guess the fear of aliens is the same as all fears. It is fear of the unknown. If I were to run into a really scary alien, it would probably not be as scary as thinking about running into a really scary alien. Once you’ve learned more about it, you can make a plan and possibly defeat it or friend it and help it depending on what you learn but then the control is back in your possession. I have seen people who went in for cancer testing and were terrified until they knew they actually had cancer. Then they were relieved because they had a treatment plan and knew what was going to happen next.

I guess the moral of this story is knowledge wins over fear. So I hope that everyone learns more and fears less. Have a great day.