More from Carl Sagan’s excellent The Demon-Haunted World. He tells us that, according to alien abductee Betty Hill, the pesky visitors from outer space “frequently help themselves to some of [the abductee’s] belongings, such as fishing rods, jewelry of different types, eyeglasses or a cup of laundry soap”.
Remember that, and next time you see a myopic angler festooned with rings and necklaces emerging from the launderette, you can make a citizen’s arrest and cart it off to your secret underground lab.
Has anyone ever tried leaving a trail of soap powder to tempt an alien into coming home with them?
My secret underground lab is in the attic.
I intend to collate an alien attraction index.
I will place the listed items on the rickity loft ladder on subsequent evenings and count the amount of aliens attracted up the ladder to my humane alien capture pod.
I will have to stick with the cup of laundry soap as a trail of soap powder may constitute a health and safety hazard and leave me open to litigation from injured alien lifeforms.
Perhaps we should remain open to the possibility that the so-called Milky Way is in actuality the Soapy Way. Appearances, at such improbable distances, can be deceptive. And after all, if it had once been milk it would probably have long-since turned into yoghourt (however pronounced) and seeped away through some wormhole or similar hyper-culvert. But, as the poet has taught us, soap springs eternal.
‘Yoghurt’ is always pronounced ‘yo-hooort’, as you are quite well aware.