Crashed UFO at Power Mart

Lathrop, California

If only every alien invasion was this well-received. Fortunately for the town of Lathrop, the flying saucer that smacked into the local Power Mart (formerly the Tower Mart) in 1999 disgorged nothing but fun-loving aliens and green plasma.

The Power Mart is a grocery store/convenience chain store close to the interstate ribbon that ties Sacramento and San Francisco to LA through the flat, dull central valley of California. I-5 has a speedy 80 mph kinda pace, so most passers hurtling by never notice the 30 foot- diameter saucer sticking halfway out of the sloping roof of the Mart.

From the gas island, you can spot spindly green ETs whooping it up on the saucer's edge. Inside, it's even crazier -- scores of saucer men are suckered on to every flat surface, scuttling along counters in every aisle, squeezing milk cartons and extracting the yolk from all of our eggs.

The other half of the saucer is visible poking through a blistered hole in the ceiling, the craft badly damaged. They won't be going home any time soon...

And why should they? The locals hardly notice now. As far as they know, every grocery store in America looks like this. And the Power Mart, seizing opportunity, employs images of the cute aliens in all their in-store signs and posters, waving slices of pizza near the frozen foods and juggling meat near the butcher.

Roswell, eat your heart out.