There were aliens outside my bedroom window on Tuesday morning, but they didn't stay long.

As you know, I've not been sleeping that well. I can't put it down to anything in particular, but it is consistent. Somewhere between 5:30 and 7:30 am, I always wake up with a start, after tossing and turning for most of the night. I suspected that the early morning wake up might be due to our neighbour leaving for work. He's an electrician who works contract and can be out at bizarre hours. Their driveway would be no more than 10 metres from my bedroom window, so it wouldn't surprise me. I also figured that I must wake up as the car is leaving so that by the time I've gathered my senses, the car is well out of hearing range because I'm not aware of any noise that has woken me up. This theory may be right or wrong, I don't know, but it did seem at least plausible.

But on Tuesday morning, at 5:34am, I woke up, yet again, with a start - wide eyed awake. There was a *very* bright flickering red-white light streaming through the gaps in the blinds.

I thought that I'd pegged it then - obviously had to be headlights to be that bright, they were flickering because the engine was running and therefore they were wobbling, and the red tone was the *back* lights as he reversed out of the.....

Hang on! As my brain woke up some more, I realised that there was *no way* that headlights could be shining directly into my window - my fence is only 2 metres away directly parallel to the window, and any car in any plausible spot would either have the lights entirely blocked out, or would be coming in at a very tight angle. *No Way* could headlights be shining *directly* in.

Headlights also didn't explain why there was an occasional red tinge, and as I laid there watching, it dawned on me that even the bumpiest engine could not make headlights flicker that much, and besides, man-made engines make *noise*. There was nothing but stony silence (and Shmogg's blissfully ignorant snoring).

The only other conclusion that my sleep deprived brain could make, which, as far as I'm concerned, quite reasonable under the circumstances, was that the incredibly bright, flickering red and white light could obviously come from nothing other than alien craft.

I lay there in abject terror.

Nothing happened.

No little green men, no bizarre operations, not even a decent human-alien sex romp.

Nothing.

My rational mind slowly returned to me. Once my head had emerged from the covers (note to self: if a superior species has the technology to fly the distance of space, they will also have sufficient technology to break through the security of the doona, even a particularly warm and comforting one), I saw that the light was not changing much in intensity, and the flickering, although random, wasn't increasing or decreasing in frequency.

Curiosity finally overcame my fear. (That and my yells of "Joel! Joel!" went unanswered)

I went to the window and gingerly peered out.

The red-white flickering light was coming from *under* my neighbour's house and was so bright, you could read a book.

I shut the blinds again and had another completely useless session of panic and then calmed down enough to continue some more futile worrying. Clearly, it could be nothing else *but* aliens.

The light continued to flicker through my blinds while I um-ed and ah-ed about whether to get a better look or go back to bed and play dead. I figured if aliens had wanted to do something to me or with me, they would have done it by now, or it was already all over bar the shouting.

Since I was now good and awake, I opened my blinds further and had a really good look - I even stretched up as high as I could to get the best view. On tip-toe I could just see a metal bucket with flames leaping out of it. It was a citronella candle bucket that they had placed near their back door to keep the mozzies out while they slept. It was hot night, and we only had the security screens locked too.

It had obviously burnt its way down over the course of the night, and at about 5:30am there must have been nothing left but a thin layer of molten wax. Since there was nothing to support the wick, it must have fallen in and instead of going out, it must have lit the whole surface of the wax (occasionally I've seen "tealight" candles do the same). The light was very bright to my night-dilated eyes, and the bright orange white light flickered - occasionally more red, occasionally a bit whiter. It looked like it was underneath the house because people aren't used to judging shadow angles that go up, and I couldn't see the source of the flames unless on tip-toe because of the fence. Mystery solved.

I kept an eye on until it died down 10 or so minutes later to make sure nothing caught fire and then went back to bed. Although I was definitely relieved that the strange flickering silent light had a perfectly rational and plausible explanation, I was just a tad disappointed that it was something so mundane as a candle going out. I should have known it wasn't an alien all along, though, because Shmogg slept the whole way through it. No self-respecting cat ever ignores the mothership.

Copyright © Vicky Chapman
March 12, 2000