I pick her up from the airport in the early afternoon. She’s bubbly, mid-fifties, professionally dressed. I help her put her suitcase in the trunk and when we get moving I ask where she’s coming from.

“Las Vegas,” she tells me. “I was at a UFO convention.”

I pause, not sure what to make of the phrase, whether such a convention must be full of the stereotypes called to mind by pop culture, or whether it could be more about the calm and rational discussion of recently declassified documents and the like. She looks pretty straight-laced, but looks can be deceiving.

I play it cautiously, saying, “That sounds interesting. What was that like?”

She tells me. Oh, does she tell me! About the UFOs, about the creatures who fly them, who built the pyramids, about how the grays are the next evolutionary state of humans time-traveling back to us, about how she was abducted in her twenties and brought aboard a craft where she met a being she eventually came to realize was her future self. She tells me everything.

I drop her off, help her get her bag out of the trunk, and make a note to check out a UFO convention sometime.