I tried to google my question but my search did not produce a satisfactory answer. So, I decided to contact a few people who claim to have actually had a close encounter of the third kind, and ask them to draw that experience. My hope was that at least one of them would come up with an alien that did not resemble a frog. None of them did. Whether that makes their stories more believable or the concept of humanoid aliens less stupid, I will leave to you to decide.

Here are some of those drawings, coupled with brief interviews I conducted with the “alien abductees”.

Louise’s drawing of her experience

LOUISE, 56

VICE: Can you tell me about the time you were abducted?
Louise: It was in 1997 – I was 37 at the time. I woke up in the middle of the night, paralysed. To my right, there were two small aliens. I can’t really explain why, but I wasn’t scared. I was raised horizontally above the bed and levitated towards the closed window. The next moment, I found myself on a very cold table surrounded by the two small aliens and a third, much bigger creature who was standing by my feet. His body was a blur to me, but I suddenly realised I had seen him 20 years earlier, in what I had then thought was a nightmare. With regression therapy I came to realise they had visited me before but I just always thought they were ghosts in a recurring dream.

What did they do?
They inseminated me artificially, and when I found myself back in bed, I knew I was pregnant. I couldn’t be, because I had a coil and I was going through a divorce. But in an emergency appointment with the gynaecologist, he confirmed I was. The night before I was supposed to have an abortion, I prayed to God and Mary to help me. The next day, I was happy again. I called off the abortion.

What do you think happened to make you pregnant?

I think they took semen from my ex-husband and then modified the DNA. I have three sons – two of them came from something like this. They’re both very precocious. I never suffered during the abductions. If these creatures wanted to do us any harm, they would have attacked us by now.

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Stéphane’s drawing of his experience

STÉPHANE, 41

VICE: Hi Stéphane. What can you tell me about your alien encounter?
Stéphane: It was on March the 24th, 2010, after my night shift at the hospital where I work. At about 4AM I drove up to the security gate to go home, when a flash of light blinded me. In a split second, I found myself in another place – I was on a mountain, and there was a lake at its foot. Suddenly a huge space ship appeared in the sky, while an even brighter light began to emanate from the ground. That’s all I remember. The next thing I know, I am back behind the wheel of my car, passing the security gate. When I got out, I was approached by police who said they had been looking for me. It turned out I had been gone for three days. I have no idea what happened.

Did you see aliens?
I don’t think I did, but on that mountain I did see people who looked human though I couldn’t really see or I can’t remember their faces. Generally, I think these beings can divert our minds and make us think of something else.

Did you bear any physical marks?
For about a month, I had three dots on my right hand, spaced two centimetres apart in the form of a triangle. It hurt a lot for the first week – like a burn that wouldn’t heal. Ever since that experience, I always have the feeling that I’m being watched.

Émilie’s drawing of her experience

ÉMILIE*, 57

VICE: What do you remember happening to you?
Émilie: I was 17 and my boyfriend spent the night at my house. My mother allowed us to sleep in the living room that night – which my father would never have, but he was away working a night shift. The three of us spent the evening chatting in the living room. At some point, I began to hear a repeated thump, which my mother and boyfriend couldn’t hear.

We all went to bed around midnight. The noises first got more intense, and then muffled. My boyfriend heard nothing and fell asleep instantly. I was terrified, it felt like time had stopped around us. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I saw several small, hooded creatures circling the bed. I couldn’t see their faces.

What about your boyfriend?
I tried to wake him up by shaking him, but he wouldn’t wake up. So I ran out of the living room and fled to my own room. A few minutes later, I heard the key in the front door unlock – it was suddenly 7AM and my father was returning from his night shift. I had lost nearly six hours – I have no idea what happened between shaking my boyfriend and running to my room. That was the most traumatic thing about it.

What did you do the next day? Did you tell anyone?
I was so angry at my boyfriend for not having woken up that I broke up with him and have not seen him since. But no one woke up from the noise – my grandmother, sister, mother and boyfriend were all in the house. It took me a long time before I told someone. I’ve felt like a guinea pig ever since that experience – like I’ve been used and violated.

Myriame’s drawing of her experience

MYRIAME, 60

VICE: Could you describe your experience for me?
Myriame: It happened in 1987, while I was holidaying in a chalet in Chamonix, in the French Alps. Right before I fell asleep, I heard a clicking sound. When I woke up, I saw that the skylight in the roof above me had opened up and a cord had come down from the sky through it – it was connected to my genitals. Two small beings floated around the cord. The only part I could move was my eyes, and didn’t understand anything about what was going on.

I wasn’t used to that feeling – I’m a computer scientist and very passionate about astronomy. I’m a member of the Astronautical Commission of the Aéro-Club of France – the French aviation society. I’m used to understanding space phenomena – or at least parts of it. I didn’t understand anything about this.

Do you have an idea of what they did to you?
Yes, after some regression therapy with a hypnotherapist. I saw that I was lying on a table in a huge transparent dome, while they had me completely covered in a gelatinous substance. The little beings were there as well as larger ones, and the cord was still in me – it went up my right kidney, which hurt. I levitated above the table for a while, which was an incredible sensation.

You also mentioned that you remember a second experience.
Yes, that was another time in the same chalet, when through the skylight, I could make out a black spaceship in the sky. Then I found myself back in a dome with the little aliens, but also with one larger being that looked a bit like a praying mantis. It was standing at the end of the table and it tried to console me a little, which worked. I couldn’t move and I don’t know what they did, until I passed through a tunnel of light and was back in my bed. So, yeah. There you go.

*Emilie’s name has been changed.