BRIGHT FRIENDS

Papagapitos (Artemis Bound, 2001), in this memoir, claims to have had encounters with aliens over the course of two decades.

In 1951, at the age of 4, the author states, she was “carried to a beautiful ship surrounded by bright, white light in the desert” of Arizona. She goes on to say that she met alien beings—and that it would not be the last time. However, this book doesn’t contain sinister accounts of alien abduction; indeed, the author maintains that the beings that visited her were always friendly and she “thrived on the visitations.” That said, the aftermath of these encounters still created some trouble in her life, including unexplained nosebleeds and apparent evidence of surgery on her ovary—things that she says that doctors often couldn’t explain. Although the author says that she knew not to worry, her mother found these issues alarming. Even so, Papagapitos’ own stories of aliens are enthusiastically positive; they were her titular “Bright Friends,” and, in her view, they were simply conducting some sort of experiment on her—one that wasn’t meant to be hostile. Indeed, in later years, she says, she would proactively drive out into the desert to meet them. This is an earnestly told tale that effectively interweaves family history, poems, and the author’s own drawings. Some of the more personal details, such as the story of the Papagapitos’ parents coming to America, help to provide readers with a clear image of the author, despite her claims, which most will find hard to believe; they include the far-fetched idea that “some day inter-planetary stock markets will be trading DNA commodities as routinely as they do ‘gold and silver’ shares today.” The author concludes with the hope that she will get to see “an official worldwide acknowledgement of UFOs and alien visitors.”

A highly readable account of extraordinary visitations.