by K.C. Bickel

New Mexico, USA Phew! According to Dexter native, Lou Race, we lucky Earthlings just narrowly missed total annihilation. And we didn’t even know it!

Lou, an avid backpacker, recently took a camping trip through Frazier Woods in Roswell, New Mexico. He chose the location after reading National Interrogator's extensive coverage of the Frazier Woods’ UFO sighting last year. Who could forget my exclusive one-on-one interview with Rocky Calhoun? "I’m such a big fan of National Interrogator and you, K.C.," Lou gushes. (Stop, I’m blushing).

On his camping trip, Lou stumbled onto a collection of pulsating blue crystals while digging his fire pit. Lou loosened the crystals from the ground and put them by his tent, thinking he would bring them home for his wife’s garden. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, the crystals attacked! Lou claims the crystals surrounded his foot, "Like they was gonna eat it clean off." But for some reason the crystals quickly retreated (maybe they forgot the ketchup). Oh my, crystals that move? " Yes'm. Like puddin' on a hot skillet," says Lou.

Lou, thinking fast, gathered up the blue crystals and threw them in his NI Travel Thermos (get yours for only $5.99!). He cut his trip short and quickly took the crystals to his cousin’s garage. "My cousin, he’s some kinda genius," explains Lou. "He could be working for the government or Kellogg’s or something, but isn’t on account of his record." Seems Lou’s cousin, who requested his name not be printed, has had more than a few brushes with the law over his "strictly for educational purposes" meth labs. Lou knew if anybody could tell him the nature of the freaky blue crystals, it was his cousin.

In an exclusive phone interview with NI, Lou reveals his cousin’s startling theory on the crystals' origins. "My cousin had some time alone with the crystals. Maybe too much time now that I think on it. I hadn't heard from him in about three days, so I went to his garage to see how the tests were goin'. Took me a while, but I found him in the crawl space, swinging around a shovel and shoutin'. He said he could see clearly the nature of the crystals now. The crystals are alien. Not just alien, but like alien bugs. Not bugs, but whaddya call it… tapeworms. Like they need a host? So Paulie tells me, I mean my unidentified cousin tells me these crystals could destroy the world. And you can quote us on that." Lou’s cousin named the crystals after his D&D alias, Gandar. (Pulsating blue crystals named Gandarium? I thought pulsating blue crystals were called Retsin and were the secret ingredient in Certs!)

Later that night, Lou's cousin came down from the crawlspace and expounded on his theory. "Turns out it ain't the Gandarium's fault if they kill everyone on the planet. Isn't really their nature. What they're really used for, back where they came from, is uh… well, Paulie called them 'genetic velcro for alien/human hybridization'." Say again? "I know, it confused me, too. But then Paulie pulled out his stuffed Jackolope and explained it to me in simpler terms. See, if you were to make a Jackolope from scratch you'd have to take jackrabbit genes and mix them with antelope genes, but they don't go together too good. Like human genes and alien genes. Won't never hitch onto each other. But you add in some genetic velcro and the alien genes and human genes stick together like a peanut butter sandwich."

Apparently, having properly hospitable human DNA for the Gandarium is extremely rare. But were the Gandarium to find a human with the right genes, and manage to latch onto their DNA but didn't have alien DNA to connect it to, it would mutate. "Like if you just put the peanut butter on the one slice and left it out without completing the sandwich. The peanut butter would get the bread all soggy and mold up and the mold would get on the other food on the counter and hold on, I think I might be sick."

Lou left the phone interview for a short spell and returned to conclude his story. "Anyhoo, we got to thinkin' that if the crystals accidentally got in the woods, that probably meant aliens'd been there and had already created all these human-alien sandwiches. They could be anywhere and look like anyone." Lou and his cousin were so rattled by the idea they didn't leave the garage for four days. "Actually, we would've been there longer, but the police done come and hauled Paulie off for breakin' parole. And they took all his equipment, too."

Sadly, none of his cousin's theories will ever have a chance to be proven. In fact, there's no remaining evidence of the crystals at all. "They got flushed," Lou laments. "I was keeping a close eye on them for Paulie while he was gone, but the crystals just sorta melted and slipped down the drain in his garage. I'm pretty sure they died."

As a loyal reader of National Interrogator, Lou vows to keep a sharp lookout for any more dangerous blue crystals. Until then, gentle readers, hold off on using that next scoop of Blue Raspberry drink mix and "Stay out of the sewers, that's for sure."