5:00 PM -- Reuters opens today's report on a gathering of UFO enthusiasts with the following poignant tale of trans-galactic bonding:

One minute Jonathan Reed was hiking with his golden retriever in a forest in Seattle. The next, his pet was being torn apart by a "gray" -- an alien being with an elongated head, smelling of rotting fruit.

A scene from a sci-fi film? No, maintains Reed, a former child-developmental psychologist who says he took the alien home and lived with it for nine days in which it communicated via telepathy and was able to pull thoughts from his mind.

I hope ET was able to telepathically communicate why he eviscerated poor Fluffy.

The Congress of Loonies, in Lima, Peru, has been organized by the "Alfa y Omega group that believes a fleet of UFOs will fly to Earth at the end of the world and Christ could use one for his second coming..."

Apart from child-developmental psychologists, to judge from the Reuters story, the group seems mainly composed of retired US Air Force Colonels.

— Larry, also smells of rotten fruit, Light Reading