I was twelve when I heard aliens for the first time. They interrupted a broadcast on the creaky old RCA transistor I kept on in my room for company when I couldn’t sleep.

We had then been three weeks in Michigan, my family having just moved there from Los Angeles when my father lost his job at the Los Angeles Daily Times.

There were almost no radio stations in the Upper Peninsula in 1961, and usually you only got to listen to a broadcast for as a long as the wind gave it to you. It was very late that night. I had been half-listening to a slow version of “Git It In Your Soul,” flipping through a science fiction novel in the lamplight, when “Git It In Your Soul” slowly fizzled into a low haunting hum.

I remember looking up from my book and thinking I would get up and find another station in a moment, but I was at a particularly interesting part and didn’t want to put my book down. Before I could get up, the humming stopped and a low electronic voice slowly intoned, “Hello.” Again for good measure: “Hello.” My armpits dampened with the sudden thrill.

Next the voice said, “Hola.” And after a few thudding heartbeats: “Hola” again. Then on to “bonjour,” and languages I didn’t know.