Most people think it would be wonderful to meet face to face with aliens. Oh what an experience it would be! Believe me, it’s nothing like you imagine. I wasn’t abducted; I went with them of my own free will. Never again. To start with, the food was putrid. I asked what it was but they refused to say. I feel sick just thinking about it.

Then they sleep upright. Yes, they sleep, but it’s quite different from the way we sleep.  Their sleep is their most active stage of the day. I suppose we would call it sleep-walking.  Being awake is their chill out period. They sit around in armchairs. I couldn’t believe how hard they worked in their sleep. I kept nodding off. They seemed to be keen horticulturalists – judging from the number of potted plants they tendered. They made me (in my pretended sleep-walk) prune the largest of the potted plants. I felt like some sort of slave.

Of course I didn’t know where I was. Was I still on Planet Earth or had I been taken to their planet or somewhere else? I seem to be in quite a large room with off-coloured white walls and no windows or doors. Just potted plants galore. I said I was homesick – which seemed to have been the only emotion they understood or felt empathy for. And so I was taken back to Planet Earth (if indeed I had ever left it).

They seemed to regret my going and left me with a parting gift: a laser gun that I could use for pruning in my own garden. It annihilated things. I still have it.

You know what I did with it? I killed them all. Every one of the creepy creatures. They didn’t simply vamoose – they vaporised. With the current fad of being transparent, you’re the first person I’ve ever told.