io9: alien invasions

British Schoolchildren Traumatized by Fake Alien Invasion

Lauren Davis — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:00:00 PDT

Hoping to spark their students' imaginations, a junior school in England staged an alien invasion, complete with a crash landing and the "abduction" of one of their faculty members while the children watched. What could possibly go wrong?

Faculty at the Southway Junior School in West Sussex hoped to improve their students' writing skills by giving them something exciting to write about about – front row seats to an alien invasion:

Diana Goss, the headteacher, informed pupils that an alien craft had crashed near the school and pupils were encouraged to "follow a trail of debris" before stumbling across the UFO.

A member of staff was then abducted by aliens before the children were sent back to class.

Sussex police not only approved the event, they participated in it, contributing sirens and flashing lights to make the crash more convincing. Unfortunately, it proved too convincing for some of the 370 students – some as young as seven – who witnessed the abduction. Parents, who were not informed about the "invasion" in advance, were less than pleased when their youngsters came home certain that they had witnessed an actual alien abduction. Said one parent:

"My daughter was deeply upset by it all and came home looking shell shocked.

"She wasn't sure what had happened and really wanted to know that everything was going to be alright."

Still, the school's creative goals might be met when the students use this childhood trauma as fodder for their eventual memoirs.

Children traumatised by 'War of Worlds' abduction of teacher [Telegraph via Xenophilia]

Is This The Year We Have To Kill Cute Aliens?

Charlie Jane Anders — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:00:00 PDT

Two new trailers for the Ashley-Tisdale-vs-cute-aliens epic Aliens In The Attic have come out, and they're making me wonder: Is this the year of movies about humans fighting cute aliens with big eyes? The second trailer includes a rundown of the movie's cutesy alien invaders. At least there's mind control.

So in Aliens In The Attic (formerly known as They Came From Upstairs) a family goes on vacation in the countryside, only to find that four aliens have gotten there first. And these aliens are the vanguard of an alien invasion fleet, although one of them really just wants to make friends. There's Sparks, the friendly one, Skip, the mean one, Spike, the dumb one, and Razor, the female one. Here's the UK trailer, with more details on these incredibly vivid personalities. Plus mind-control and crotch shots!

So seriously, what's the deal with us having to battle cute aliens all the time? First there was Battle For Terra, where we invaded the planet of lovable ETs. Then there's this movie, where the cute aliens invade us back. And then there's Planet 51, where the Rock crashes on a planet of cute aliens and gets mistaken for an invader. And finally, there's James Cameron's Avatar, where we invade the cute aliens again. What gives?

What Would It Take To Bring Alien Invasions Back?

Charlie Jane Anders — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:57:00 PDT

Remember alien invasions? Strange creatures from beyond the stars, showing up on Earth and attempting to subjugate the heck out of us? Wasn't that cool? What ever happened to those would-be dominators anyway? The only recent alien invasion movie I can think of was the Nicole Kidman Invasion... which is best forgotten anyway. What would it take to bring extraterrestrial land-grabs back to the big or small screen?