// NATURE NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
Where have all the saucers flown?
Jeff Hecht is based in the Boston area where he writes factual articles about science and technology to make a living and science-fiction stories to stimulate the imagination, many of them for Nature Futures.
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Holding her lunch box, Lili scanned the noon break area at the Exotic Destinations travel show. The middle-aged travel agents chattering among themselves ignored her, but a tall Black woman with snow-white hair waved.
Recognizing her from the session on tourism on the Extraterrestrial Highway, Lili walked over to ask, “May I join you?”
“Certainly,” the woman said. “My name’s Bettye, with an e at the end. I noticed you at the Extraterrestrial Highway session.”
“I’m Lili, with two l’s, two i’s and no y at all, and I saw you there. What did you think of their space alien experience?” She sat down to unpack her lunch.
“It’s changed tremendously since I was young,” Bettye said. “My parents just hoped to see a flying saucer on a long trip across the southwestern desert. Now they have cheesy roadside attractions with animated space aliens waving outside the door.”
Intrigued, Lili asked “What was it like back then?”
“Flying saucers were a mystery in the sixties; everybody wanted to see one. Papa was an Air Force mechanic, and pilots told him they had seen saucers. The Byrds sung about hitching a ride on a saucer. Papa always looked for saucers.”
“I wish I had travel stories, but my parents were too poor to take vacations after they immigrated from Hong Kong.”