“They say his body was never found…” the boy around the campfire said in his best spooky voice. He’s right – they never found my body.

“…And on nights like this, with foggy conditions like the night he disappeared he still haunts these woods.” Oh yes, boy, he does…

I mean, that’s my cue right there. “…He still haunts these woods.” Come on! You don’t get a better line than that. Poof, show up – I mean fully show my ghostly self, or even shake a tent, or make the fire roar. Hell, just yell “boo!” at that point and they’re all pissing themselves. These are the moments I live for. Well, these are the moments I died for – not that I intended to die, of course. But a ghost has to have some fun when he’s forced to aimlessly roam this mortal plain for all of blah blah blah.

Yeah, so I was all ready to scare the crap out of them (literally in the case of that one kid who clearly was all-in on this haunted woods thing when the forest lights up like an enormous sun ignited above us. But it wasn’t a sun. It was a beam from a big craft. A frickin’ flying saucer. And their damn beam was focused right. On. Me. What the hell?

The beam turned blue and I could see by some of pine needles and rocks around me drifting upwards that they were expecting me to get sucked up into their machine.

“Holy crap, there’s the ghost!” one of the kids yelled, they all turned and looked at me, shrieked and started running.

“Is that a flying saucer, too?!” One of the fleeing kids yelled.

As a ghost, being seen when you don’t want to be seen is like that dream where you show up to school without your clothes on. Dear reader, in that moment in the blue beam with pine needles and stick and crap floating upwards past me I might as well have been buck naked. (for the record, I wasn’t literally naked. I want to make that clear before you think some pervert ghost was going to expose himself to those campers. You know, you’ve got a really sick mind, Reader. You should be ashamed of yourself!)

The kids were gone. Ship is hoovering the forest floor – is this what Trump thinks the Finns do to their forest? Anyway, they eventually realize I’m not getting sucked up – duh – and the light winks out and the craft starts to drift away.

No, no, no, they’re not getting away that easily. So maybe they’re not going to suck me into their probe-palace, but I can certainly materialize on their flying saucer.

Which is exactly what I do.

I’d like to say, “You should have seen the look on their faces,” but their faces didn’t change from those big black almond eyes on their giant gray heads. One jumped. Another literally fell out of its chair – that was pretty funny. But there was no screaming and when there’s no screaming… what’s the point?

“What do you guys think you’re doing trying to abduct me? I’m a ghost!”

Yes, one of the grays (not the jumper or the chair-faller) said. Well, didn’t say. Its lips didn’t move, but the words appeared in my brain. I mean, ectoplasm? Whatever, you get the idea. We wanted to try to understand this human phenomenon of a “Ghost.” That is why we must subdue you.

He stepped aside and another gray guy behind him had this thing that – swear to God – looked like some 50’s sci-fi ray gun. He shot me. Okay, he tried to shoot me. The beam went right through me and tagged a gray behind me who dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“That’s your plan?” I said. “You travel millions of light years in an interstellar-capable craft and your best idea after your transport beam failed was to shoot me with a different ray? I mean, that guy’s going to have a hell of a headache,” I nodded to the gray on the floor twitching.

We were hoping it would not come to this. We have no other choice, the lead gray said as two other grays rushed me holding what looked like cattle prods. They jabbed them at me… no, they jabbed them through me. To zero effect.

I looked at my watch impatiently as the two grays circled me jabbing through my incorporeal-ness. They kept going like maybe one of them would jab just the right spot. I sighed loudly. “Look Marvin,” I said to the head gray. “Are you done yet?”

Why are you not susceptible to our energy weapons? It asked.

“I’m going to say this slowly so it might sink in. I. Am. A. Ghoooooooooost.”

Yes but….

“No buts, Marvin. Ghost! Not solid. Of the spirit world. Why don’t you study your own ghosts?”

We do not have ghosts.

“You’re kidding me,” I said.

We do not have ghosts, he repeated.

I stared at him in disbelief then I looked around the bridge at the dozen or so grays at consoles studying screens, or moving levers and pressing buttons – it was all very deck-of-Star-Trek looking. Then I saw what I was looking for. Behind one of the grays sitting in a chair (it was a cute little chair for the little guy!) stood another gray… that looked a little… not solid, shall we say. As if it felt me looking at it, it turned and its big black eyes really did bulge in shock. I paced over to the gray ghost and grabbed it by its scrawny neck. That I was able to grab it – actually get a grip on the thing – confirmed it was just as much a ghost as me. As my fingers closed around its neck it must have appeared like I did – now it was feeling just as naked as I felt when those kids viewed me against my will. Wait, that doesn’t sound right…

Marvin jumped back as he stared at the now-visible gray ghost.

Boo? The gray ghost thought-spoke.

I laughed, “You’re not a bad ghost, Casper the gray,” I said to him. Then to Marvin, “You don’t have ghosts?!” I put my arm around Casper’s shoulders. I mean, I had to stoop to do it, but it was worth it.

What? I do not understand! He sounded legitimately flummoxed. Boom! Mind: blown!

“You’re welcome, Marvin,” I said walking away. “You can ask Casper the gray here about how many other ghosts are around. But given someone on board might know this guy personally, you might want to ex-nay on the whole probing thing.”

I didn’t wait for a thank you.

I stood by the campfire. “You shouldn’t leave a campfire unattended!” I yelled in the direction the boys fled. “Didn’t Smokey teach you anything?” I sat down on a log next to the fire and picked up a stick and a marshmallow from a bag left behind when they fled. “Ooh, smores!”