INVASION OF THE TENT WORMS FROM OUTER SPACE

By Ted Collin

Day 1
The Attacks
This is the year of the great invasion of tent worm caterpillars. They are several times more numerous than previous years and, seem to be devouring everything that their mouths come into contact with. Several half eaten cattle, deer and, buffalo have been found near the Sleeping Bear Dunes in Northern Michigan. The dunes themselves have very little vegetation left on them. We investigators who are in the know, know this area to be known as AREA 91. In other words, this is like the outer space stuff that goes on at Area 51 except, you can tell by the bigger number that stuff that goes on at Area 91 is far bigger.

After poring over countless government files at the local tax assessors office, we have concluded that area 91 had a crash landing of a craft from outer space about 65 million years ago. This was of course at the time the dinosaurs died out and became extinct. We of course, by using multiple regression analysis came to the conclusion that the crash of the space ship caused the dinosaurs to die out. But, how did the crash affect the dinosaurs and what does that have to do with tent worms? The more we investigate this puzzle it seems the more pieces don’t fit like they should. It was evident that, we will have to force the pieces of this puzzle to fit together so that everything would come out just as we imagined it would. We were desperate researchers trying to stop the carnage of plants and animals by these extra terrestrial tent worms.

In order to fight the menace we at Outer Space News Nuts decided to break into three teams. The twins Laurie and Carrie, would check out the country side to find out the status of the alien invasion. My brothers Tim and Mike will go to area 91 itself and sniff sound on the sand dunes. I and Gerard, the guy that raises rats in his basement, have chosen to stay out of the front line of fire and will instead interview whoever we think can shed some light on this invasion force. Perhaps, we will stop them yet.

Day 2
The Reports Are In And It Is Not Good!!!
Tim and Mike were the first ones to make a report today. They went exploring at the Sand Dunes. They did not find the secret portal that opens up to the secret pentagon black box military base that lies beneath the dunes however, Tim and Mike did find vast swaths of vegetation missing from the sand. Along long areas of beach, there were wide areas between the water and where the vegetation started. It seems the evil beasties have carved large swaths along our Northern Beaches leaving nothing but sand behind them. It seems, these tent worms must eat organic life forms and leave silicon (sand) behind as their excrement. This is important information but, we don’t know what is so important about it? This is just one more piece of that puzzle that we are going to cram into a spot where we think it should go.

The twins reported back today that they indeed found vast areas of fruit trees where the leaves were completely eaten from the trees. A couple of leaves were found with bite imprints on them and these bite marks were immediately sent to our dentist for analysis. It seems our space aliens are not so perfect after all. Our dentist said the bite marks indicated a distinct over bite which accounts for the hideous appearance of the creature when you look directly into his face. Our Dentist also stated that judging by all the plaque left in the bite marks that our extraterrestrial friends do not brush and floss after every meal. Perhaps their poor oral hygiene might cause them to loose their teeth prematurely from periodontal disease. This is the first good news we’ve had since this crisis began.

Gerard and I played Foosball all day and drank beer. Tonight we went to the bar to play pool and watch the Tigers play (they won by the way and I‘m up another five bucks). I also won us a pitcher of beer playing pool and I won another pitcher of beer in a darts tournament. I feel so relaxed right now I almost don’t care about those creepy crawly things that eat up everything. My strategy to unwind has worked.

Day 3
The relaxation strategy that Gerard and I employed yesterday was a way for us to try to keep our heads clear during this crisis. Drinking beer all day and all night has given us the clarity of mind we need to find out how to stop these many footed creatures that live only to devour our flesh and blood and suck the chlorophyll out of our mobility challenged plant brothers. Yesterday, my brothers ( real brothers not plant brothers) and the twins, went out to gather information on the damage the space and/or time traveling tent worms have caused. Today it's Gerard and my turn at bat. We have lined up an expert to interview. This interview is so good that I’m sure we will prevail in saving the world from the tent worms. The consequences of our failure is unacceptable. On to the interview.

2 Hours Later
Gerard called in sick today. It seems he must have caught the flu at the bar last night. Or maybe he can’t face me today because I was winning all the sports contests last night. Because of my athletic abilities last night, I remember being the most popular guy at the bar. I was a lot more popular than Gerard was that's for sure. I’m also a lot better looking than Gerard. Just being around him gives most people the creeps, especially the ladies. I know I’m feeling much less creepy today without him around and I kind of like the guy.

Even without Gerard I will go ahead with my interview with our special secret scientist guest, Dr. Leon Notallthere. Dr. Notallthere was the first person to be barred from flying on airplanes. He was not just barred from domestic flights but, he has been banned from getting on any aircraft anywhere in the world. He can’t even pay to go up in a hot air balloon. It seems Dr. Notallthere was in a tussle with the pilot of an aircraft back in the 1950’s. The two men hadn’t even boarded the plane yet when they got in smack down match over a parking space at the airport.

Although the doctor has had his problems at airports, many admire him for his ability to stand up to authority figures and insist that things are done right. In addition, Doctor Notallthere is considered an expert in his field by several locals.

“Doctor Notallthere, I understand you are an expert in the field of extraterrestrial tent worms.”

“First of all,” interrupted Notallthere, “ I am an expert but not in extraterrestrial tent worms. Secondly, I am not a doctor. I never received a PhD. I have a masters degree.”

“In science?” I asked.

“No, replied Notallthere,” I have a masters degree in international fly fishing though the Calgary International Fly Fishing Institute in Calgary Canada.”

“You attended school in Canada?” I asked.

“No, I’ve never been to Canada. I received my degree on line. It costs me $397.00 (Canadian) and nearly six weeks of my life.”

“So, when I talked to you on the phone and explained our situation you said you could be of great service to us in saving the earth from tent worms. What did you mean?”

“I meant if you would reimburse my $397.00 (Canadian) tuition from fly fishing college, I will tell you how to kill these creatures. I‘m a fisherman. I know all about all types of worms. Even caterpillars. I know all about anything you can stick on a fish hook for bait.”

Since I was desperate, I agreed to his terms with one change, instead of paying him $397.00 in Canadian currency I would pay him an even $400.00 in good old American made $5.00 off coupons at the pizza place across the street. Mr. Notallthere thanked me for giving him the coupons since he wasn’t sure how he would spend the Canadian money and $5.00 off pizza coupons is like money in the bank.

Day 4
We Strike Back
It seems the answer to our problem of how to defeat the evil outer space killer tent worms was no further away than the big goobers we all produce within our mouths and then try to find a place to spit them out. It seems these particular creatures die immediately when hit by high speed mouth mucus. In other words, we destroyed the tent worm army by spitting on them. My brother Mike wanted to eat the little fur balls but, Mr. Notallthere said the creatures were deadly poisonous and that consuming them was unnecessary. It seems lambasting the worms with spit was all it took to cause the fearsome creatures to wrap themselves up in a ball and simply wither away like Count Dracula when he is hit by sun light.

We were able to mobilize everyone in Nothern Michigan to start spitting at anything that moves. There was no motivation needed to get Michiganders to spit because, we spit all the time anyway. I guess the cold weather gives us lots of sinus action and who wants to swallow that stuff.

By the end of day four, no more outer space invading tent worms were left on our planet. Humanity prevailed. The plant and animal deaths caused by the visitors has ceased. All is well yet, there are so many unanswered questions regarding these creatures. For instance, we still do not know exactly how or why they chose to come to earth. We also do not know the location of the entrance to area 91. However, we will continue searching for an opening into the secret government base beneath the sand dunes knowing one day we will uncover it’s secrets.

I can’t help wondering that if the dinosaurs had figured out that they could wipe out the tent worm infection by just spitting on the worms. Perhaps if they had,the mighty dinosaurs would be with us today.

LIZARD BOY, A REAL MICHIGAN MONSTER

By Ted Colin
Associate Editor
Humor News Nuts Publications

It has come to our attention that there is a strange creature lurking in North Western Michigan and his name is Lizard Boy. Many recent campers have cited this creature usually lying in the dirt slurping up worms and bugs. This would not be unusual for any creatures living in Northern Michigan including the people that live outside of town however, whenever Lizard Boy sees a person, he gets up on his hind legs, looks the person in the eye, they Lizard Boy runs away on his back legs with his long tail flapping behind him.

Besides his aforementioned flat tail, Lizard Boy is described as having a gray/brownish body with black bands on his tail. He also has four toes and four fingers with little suction cups on the ends of his fingers. His eyes are round and his mouth is what many describe, as a round suction cup. Lizard Boy is about 6-15 inches long. Below you can see a rough sketch done by our forensic scientist/sketch type person. This sketch is based upon over 100 sitings of Lizard Boy although, no one really knows if Lizard Boy is a boy, a girl or an it. The sketch is posted below at the bottom of this page.

Upon showing our sketch to the local Department Of Resources (DNR) Agents, they just laughed and said they had "...never seen anything like that before!!!". We asked the DNR if Lizard boy might be from some other world? The DNR responded that "based upon the sketch and descriptions of this creature, it is just as likely it comes from outer space...".

The person who had the closest encounter with this "alien" was a Mrs. Paula Blinder from the town of Wild Imagination Michigan. Paula stated, "I got up out of my tent one morning and there was this lizard thing cooking bacon on my camp stove. The thing looked at me, scrunched up its sucker mouth a couple of times, slurped down my bacon and took off on his back legs, running into the woods. I never saw him again after that but, that picture you have looks just like him."

So, that's the story of Lizard Boy. We can only hope that this Lizard Boy is not just a baby. We can only hope that there is not some bigger Lizard Momma or Lizard Daddy out there waiting to eat even larger pieces of your bacon. Maybe this creature is just a part of an invasion force from another planet. Let us hope not or all of our bacon will be in jeopardy.

ALIEN CROP CIRCLES APPEAR IN NORTHERN MICHGIGAN

We have recently had a number of reported crop circle events in Northern Michigan. The farmers have been upset because we mainly have cherry orchards in the area where the crop circles have occurred. The problem is cherry trees do not snap back upright after a few days, they just die. The farmers have said it will take several years to replace the trees.

Personally, I went out to investigate the possibilities of crop circles turning up at one of the many vineyards in Northern Michigan. I never got out to look at the grapevines to see have messed up they might be by crop circles however; I did enjoy hoping from vineyard to vineyard tasting the wine and cheese. I almost bought a bottle at one place and then I saw the price was over $5.00 per bottle. I decided I'd stick to Boons Farm.

Many theories have arisen as to the cause of the crop circles. One is that Sasquatch is so powerful that he is pushing over trees to pick the fruit off of them. This seems plausible since Sasquatch is certainly powerful enough and cherries found in an orchard are a lot bigger and less bitter than the little ones you see in the wild.

Another theory is that lizard boy is now big enough to push over trees. This seems implausible since lizard boy was last seen just about a week ago still stealing bacon from campsites. He was still reported to be just a foot tall. He is still just a boy and is not even a tween yet let alone a teenager or adult lizard man monster.

The local authorities believe someone is going around with an all terrain vehicle, hitching a rope to each tree then, pulling them over. This seems implausible because it sounds silly. Who would do such a thing? If you're going to knock down a cherry tree just a chain saw.

Finally, the only theory left is the one we have to assume is correct. That theory is that Aliens from outer space have been landing on our cherry trees and knocking them over with their anti-gravity beams. The anti-gravity beams are what the aliens use to hover over the ground. They also use the anti-gravity beams to hurl themselves away from the earth at the speed of light.

Recently, the crop circles have been becoming more elaborate. They are now making designs and writing messages with the knocked over trees. One message left by the space aliens indicates their home planets distance from earth. The message read "I Love Lucy". Since this was a popular show about 50 years ago we know the space aliens live about 50 light years away. This is the distance it took for the TV airwaves of "I Love Lucy" to reach our great alien communicators.

Some local figures have ridiculed the space alien theory. They ask why don't the aliens just come down and talk to us or at least send us an e-mail or a letter. The answers to these nay sayers are simple. First, the aliens won't come down to talk to us because they think we are too violent and might try something. Second, they won't communicate with us via the Internet because they are afraid they might pick up a computer virus that could destroy their entire civilization. They may have seen "Independence Day". Finally, the aliens might be super environmentalists. By sending us mail they probably have considered how many trees were destroyed to create the paper, envelope and stamp. By not sending us mail they may have saved a tree.

ALIENS IN LONG LAKE: THIRD AND FINAL REPORT

This is Tim Collin with the final report on the alien ship that crash landed in Long Lake near Interlochen Michigan. I am now back at my office after a weekend of trying to locate the alien craft and it’s occupants. In my last report, the raft that I and Gerard (the strange guy that raises rats), was dissolving. The raft the twins were in was also going to the bottom of Long Lake. Actually, it was strangely dissolving into the surface water. It seems the stuff you use to inflate and temporally fix flat tires on cars, doesn’t work on rafts made of “Uh Oh”. My brother went snorkeling to try to find what was at the bottom of Long Lake and had come up missing. It was dark out and the mosquitoes were terrible and, worst of all something kept bumping up underneath our sinking/dissolving boat.

Well, my brother turned up. He was of course banging away at the bottom of my raft for over two hours before he figured out that he could get to the surface easier just by swimming out from under the boat. He thought if he banged on the bottom I would move our sinking raft. I was curious as to how my brother Mike could breathe while under the boat for more than two hours? I thought he should have at least suffered brain damage but, I wasin’t sure how to tell if my brother had lost any brain cells since he was never all that bright anyway.

So how did my brother survive hours without coming to the surface or breathing through his snorkel? It turns out that I had forgotten that my brother was born with a fully functional set of gills. When my brother was born, the doctors told my parents that my father should stop feeding his family with fish he caught from the cooling pond at the local nuclear plant. My dad said that before my brother was born, my mother developed an appetite for fish. We din’t have any money so, my dad got a special permit from the Department of Natural Resources to take all the fish he wanted from the nuclear cooling pond without paying for a license. Dad said that the fish were easy to catch with a net since they spent their time floating on top of the water. I wonder if the webbing between my toes has anything to do with the nuclear pond fish I ate as a kid?


After my brother was back on board our sinking boat, the twins descended into the water as their raft with a final, bubbling fizz, finished dissolving. My brother was on board the raft with myself and Gerard for only about 15 minutes before our boat fizzled out from under us leaving us up to our necks in water. Luckily we were only in about three feet of water so we all just stood up and walked about 100 feet up to the beach.

We collapsed on the beach, tired and covered with mosquito bites. This would seem to have been a wasted effort except, along the beach there were strange, non-human looking clawed footprints. After we all recovered from our walk to the beach, we followed the tracks until they disappeared into a bunch of thick bushes. As we looked into the bushes a pair of shinny eyes glowed back at us. This thing was definitely not human. It made a snarling sound then, moved slowing off into the night. The strange thing was, as we followed the foot prints down the beach, every so often we would come upon a fish head left behind, evidently by the creature. It seems the alien only eats the bodies of it’s victims and leaves the heads behind.

We came back later that day to make some plaster castes but, the waves had washed away the tracks the alien had left behind. We wanted some proof to debunk the NASA cover-up story. However, with our alien contact, I guess we debunked the NASA explanation that there was just a weather balloon that crashed last week. At least our group witnessed the alien entity and its barbaric eating habits.

In conclusion, there was something out there. This thing is not even remotely human. It eats bodies and leaves heads behind as it meanders around beaches with its long, clawed feet. Someday, when we have better technologies, we will return to Long Lake and try once again to discover the location of the craft that landed there. We might even make first contact with the thing we encountered on the beach. Like agent Moulder of the X-Files TV show use to say, “Something is out there”.

ALIENS IN LONG LAKE: SECOND REPORT

This is Tim Collin with our second report on the mysterious space craft that streaked across the Northern Hemisphere and crash landed into Long Lake about four miles from Interlochen Michigan in Grand Traverse County. As I described in our last blog before we went out on our Delta Force expedition to defend the planet Earth from invaders, I had asked our group if anyone had pumps? I assumed they realized we needed pumps to inflate our rubber rafts. The twins named Laurie and Carrie said they would each bring pumps so I thought “problem solved.” These two beautiful and Star Trek loving community college girls each brought a pair of shoes they called pumps which, of course, could not blow up our rubber rafts. Luckily, my brother Mike, who could not ever hope to pass a class in remedial PE on the community college level, decided to try blowing up our rafts using cans of “Fix-A-Flat”. This actually worked. At least it worked for a while. I’ll get to that later.

Meanwhile, on our special government sequenced radio monitoring devices which monitor government transmissions (also known as FM radio), we heard from one source (NPR Radio) that NASA said that the sighting was actually just a weather balloon. We professionals in the alien investigating field know that of course, NASA always says everything extra terrestrial is a weather balloon. If the Earth had as many weather balloons sticking into it as the NASA guys say it has sticking out of it then it would look like a planet with a bunch of weather balloons sticking into it, or out of it or, I’m not sure what I am saying. I just know that I’m right. This is what NASA does when it comes to aliens, it confuses you so you don’t know if you are sticking in or sticking out. Some times my shirt tale’s in. Some times my shirt tale’s out. Woe is me. I just want to go home. Especially because the mosquito’s are so bad out here after dark.

While the rest of us were out floating around in our boats all day today, my brother Mike decided to go snorkeling to see if he could locate the crash sight. We haven’t seen him since and it has been 2 hours. I fear for the worst. We shoved him over (dropped him off) in the middle of Long Lake and he can’t swim very well. I’m afraid the aliens have abducted him. What is worse? I have something constantly coming up from the lake and pounding on the bottom of my boat. This has been going on for about the last 2 hours.

Another problem has become apparent. This problem was caused by the “Fix-A-Flat” solution we used to inflate our rubber boats. Apart from not using this product for the designed purposes that the label warns us about, it also has the side affect of dissolving the fake rubber our boats are made of. It seems our boats were made in a country called Chuna. Chuna is a country that makes rip-off products of rip-off products produced in China. According to the box, our boats are not made of rubber or plastic but, of the new space age material known as Uhoh". This is as in “uh oh, I think we are sinking”. "Uhoh", is also the main ingredient in the tuna substitute, low cost product, found in cans of chuna fish.

There it goes again. Something keeps hitting the bottom of my boat. I guess I will have to wait awhile before I can report on more of our investigation. My lap top battery is running low and I dropped my cell phone in the bottom of the boat which has about three inches of water in it right now.