by A.J. Marlowe
I was always a believer, and the night the visitors came to my little farm in Southwest Nebraska, well, I just knew my life would never be the same.
It was one of those summer nights where the heat lingers long after the sun goes down, and the kind of silence outside that makes you feel like the world’s holding its breath. I was sipping chamomile tea, flipping through an old astronomy magazine I’d already read three times, when I saw it — a light, bright and blue, pulsing like a heartbeat just beyond the cornfield.
Now, out here, strange lights usually mean someone’s truck headlights bouncing off irrigation equipment, or some kid flying a drone after dark. But this wasn’t like that. This light had rhythm. It felt… intentional.
Curiosity got the better of me — as it often does — so I grabbed my flashlight, slipped on my old boots, and stepped out onto the porch. The air was thick with the smell of corn and the faint scent of ozone, like just before a thunderstorm. My dog, Penny, didn’t follow me. She just sat at the door, watching with those wide brown eyes, ears pinned back. That should’ve been my first clue.
I made my way down the gravel path, the beam from my flashlight jittering over rows of tall stalks. As I got closer, the light grew brighter — not just bright, but alive. It shimmered, almost like it was breathing. I stepped into the clearing at the center of the field and stopped cold.
That’s when I saw them.
They were about five feet tall, maybe a little shorter, with slick, greenish skin that shimmered like something amphibious. Their eyes were huge and black, like glass marbles, and they blinked sideways — like frogs. I wanted to scream, to run, but I couldn’t. Not because I was paralyzed — because I was in awe. I had dreamed of this moment since I was a kid, and here they were, standing in the corn like they’d been waiting for me.
Three of them. They didn’t speak — not with mouths, anyway. Instead, I felt something in my mind, like a breeze blowing through thoughts that weren’t entirely mine. It was calm, curious, almost… polite.
And then the world went white.
When the light faded, I wasn’t in the cornfield anymore.
I was standing—though barely—on a smooth, metallic floor inside what looked like the inside of a pearl. Everything had a soft glow to it, like moonlight reflected off water, and there wasn’t a single sharp edge anywhere. The walls curved, the ceiling flowed overhead like a dome made of glass and mist. And there were no seams. No rivets. Just pure, fluid design, like someone had shaped the whole ship out of thought instead of tools.
The three aliens were still there, their movements silent and strangely graceful. They didn’t walk so much as… glide. One of them approached, its wide, glimmering eyes fixed on mine, and I swear it smiled—not with a mouth, but with its whole presence. I felt it again, brushing against my thoughts like wind through a screen door.
“Emma,” the name echoed in my head, not spoken but placed there. “You are safe. You are needed.”
They knew my name. That was the first time I felt something like fear, tangled with amazement. I nodded, not because I understood, but because it felt right.
The next moment, the floor shifted beneath us — not violently, but smoothly, like an elevator made of clouds. A panel in the wall faded away, revealing a window to the stars.
And Earth.
I staggered closer, pressing my hand to the cool surface. I was looking at the entire planet, hanging in space like a marble in a dark sea. I let out a laugh — startled, half-sobbing, entirely overwhelmed. The kind of sound you make when your wildest fantasy collides with reality and leaves you breathless.
The aliens watched me quietly. They weren’t cold or clinical, the way I used to imagine extraterrestrials. They weren’t probing or dissecting or monologuing about our flaws. They were curious. Observant. Gentle.
I turned back toward them. “Why me?” I asked aloud, not really expecting an answer.
One of them, the one I was starting to think of as the leader — taller by maybe an inch, with a faint gold shimmer along its limbs — stepped forward.
“You see your world,” the thought came. “We need a guide. A witness. One who sees beyond.”
I don’t know what they saw in me. Maybe it was all those nights I spent looking through my telescope, whispering questions into the stars. Maybe it was the way I always believed we weren’t alone — not just intellectually, but deep in my bones.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t say no.
What followed felt like a dream stitched together by wonder.
The ship moved without sound or sensation — one moment we were orbiting the Earth, the next, gliding low over the surface like a shadow wrapped in moonlight. I never saw engines. Never heard a hum. Time slipped sideways inside that vessel; minutes stretched and collapsed in ways I still don’t fully understand.
But I remember the places.
We hovered above the neon veins of Tokyo at midnight, the ship cloaked in invisibility. I pointed down at the glittering chaos and whispered, “This is what humans do when we want to feel alive.” They listened, unmoving, absorbing. I could feel their questions — thousands of them — blooming behind those dark eyes, though they only shared a few.
In the Sahara, we watched a caravan of camels cross golden dunes under a lavender dawn. I told them about tradition, about survival, about the kind of peace that lives in silence.
In a fishing village off the coast of Norway, we watched a man teach his daughter to mend a net. The aliens leaned closer when she laughed — a sound so simple, so profoundly human, it made the tall one reach out and touch the air like it could catch the echo.
Each place we visited, I tried to translate what I could. Not just the sights, but the meaning — the way bread tastes better when you’re surrounded by family, the way grief sits in the chest like a weight that never shifts, the way music can make you cry even if you don’t know the words.
It wasn’t easy. Emotions don’t translate cleanly. But they tried. And somehow, they understood enough to keep going.
I started calling them the Space Frogs — affectionately, of course. Not to their faces, not really. But the resemblance stuck: smooth skin, round bellies, a kind of amphibian grace. And that sound they made when pleased — a wet, rhythmic chirp — was almost endearing once I got used to it.
They never gave me names, and I never asked. There was something sacred about the way they communicated — more essence than label. So I called them Gold, Slate, and Ripple, based on the way their skin shimmered in the light.
Days passed — or hours? Time blurred. I stopped asking. I didn’t want to go home. Not yet.
But of course, eventually, they brought me back.
It happened quietly, without ceremony.
One moment, I was showing them the Grand Canyon at dawn — the way light spills into that ancient wound in the Earth and makes everything look reborn. Gold touched the edge of the viewing window, and I felt a shift, a kind of closing.
“Your time,” the voice came gently. “Here, again.”
My heart sank. I nodded, swallowing the ache rising in my throat.
We didn’t speak much on the descent. Maybe they didn’t know what to say. Maybe they did, and just respected the silence I wrapped around myself like a blanket.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in the cornfield again. Same boots. Same night air. But the sky above me was still — no light, no ship. Just stars, blinking indifferently, as if nothing had happened at all.
I stood there for a long time, trying to decide whether to laugh, cry, or fall to my knees. I did a little of all three.
The days that followed were… strange. Everything felt smaller. The farmhouse, once a cozy retreat, felt like a shoebox. The stars, once my greatest mystery, now held a kind of longing that burned behind my ribs.
Nobody noticed anything had changed. Not really. I still fed the chickens. Still drank my tea. Still went into town once a week for supplies and small talk. But I wasn’t the same. I couldn’t be the same.
And part of me kept watching the sky. Waiting.
One year later.
The light returned.
It was quieter this time, gentler — like a knock instead of a spotlight. I didn’t run. I walked, barefoot through the dewy grass, heart pounding like it knew the rhythm of that other world.
They didn’t take me aboard. Just stood in the clearing, all three of them, shimmering in the moonlight like visitors from a dream.
Gold stepped forward and placed something in my hand — small, round, warm. A coin. Or maybe a token. The metal was smooth but alive with shifting colors, marked with a symbol I didn’t recognize but somehow understood. A reminder. A promise. A thank-you.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.
And then, they were gone.
I didn’t tell the world.
Oh, I thought about it. A hundred times. I drafted emails to journalists, stared at UFO forums, even typed out a blog post once — heart hammering with every word. But I couldn’t do it.
Not because I was afraid of being called crazy — though, yeah, that would’ve happened — but because it felt… sacred. Like telling the wrong person would break it somehow.
So, I told one.
My best friend, Leah, who lives all the way out in Virginia. She and I used to spend summers stargazing and talking about black holes and alien civilizations. If anyone would believe me, it was her.
We video called. I held up the coin. She went silent for a long time, then whispered, “Emma… what happened to you?”
And I told her. Everything.
When I finished, she didn’t laugh or doubt me. She just said, “I always knew you were right.”
That night, I sat on the porch alone with a blanket and the coin in my hand, watching the sky.
And I whispered into the dark, “Whenever you’re ready. I’ll go again.”