Close Encounters Of The Absurd Kind

Between the 1950s and 1980s, witnesses around the world reported encounters not with wise cosmic beings—but with confusing, aggressive, and sometimes downright silly aliens.

In Venezuela, gangs of 3-foot hairy dwarf-aliens spent months jumping people, throwing rocks, blinding drivers with beams of light, and escaping in round UFOs like pranksters with a getaway car. Knives, guns, fists—nothing worked on them.

In Minnesota, a teen tried to tip over a landed UFO and was confronted by tiny metal tripod creaturesthat stared at him like robotic hamsters before waddling back into the craft and flying away...