The Patio Alien with Glowing Eyes

The Patio Alien
Kithra’s recent article (an excellent piece) on the red glowing eyes of cryptids reminded me of an experience I had when young. It didn’t involve a cryptid; but a being of some kind. I mean, an “alien” type being, or humanoid kind of creature, as contrasted to a Bigfoot, Lizard Man, etc.

Los Angeles, California about 1958
I’m about four, no older. I find myself -- unexpectedly -- in the den. The dark den. In the middle of the night. No reason for me to be there; all I know is, I woke up, and here I am. And I’m terrified. I look outside through the french doors (no curtains or shades on them) that lead out to the patio, and am both mad and very frightened to see a being, standing in profile to me, fiddling around with what looks like our hose. I’m mad, outraged, that some stranger thinks he can just walk into our backyard and mess with our hose.

He’s a weird looking thing; no taller than I am, and wearing some kind of weird silver jumpsuit kind of thing, with a hood. He turns to look at me, and his eyes are two red lights, that are glowing. And he points the hose at me, which isn’t the hose at all, it’s some kind of gun or wand, rod type thing. He’s mad at me! For watching him. I’m not supposed to be there, watching him. I get a very strong feeling from this thing that he is not happy with me at all. He’s angry and the message comes through clear: stay put, stop staring at him. (it wasn’t until years later, in thinking on this, that it occurred to me: how could he see me inside? It was pitch black, no lights on inside.)

When he looks at me, I become immensely terrified, and start screaming. Crying. I don’t know what happened after that. I vaguely remember my cousin coming in but not sure.

For years after this, I remembered this as true. Not a dream, a real event that really happened. And it was so horribly frightening, that I didn’t like to think about it, and when I did, I would get an intense attack of anxiety, almost as if it were happening again.

When I reached my late teens I realized that such things couldn’t possibly happen, and it must have been a dream. And how silly to focus on a dream from so long ago. I convinced myself that’s what it was.

Those feelings of anxiety still crept in however, and as I became familiar with the esoteric, I realized that my memory was not fantasy or a dream. This episode is just one more in the journey of strange encounters and events in the context of my “paranormal life.”

A note on the images here: I couldn’t find the jpeg with just the pation alien, but I managed to find an image I had made a few years ago where I’d put several drawings of weird experiences and UFO sightings together in one view. At the top, you’ll see a little sketch or drawing I did of the “patio alien.”