ABDUCTED BY ALIENS?

 

            When I first heard on the radio that a commercial jet disappeared over the ocean, my first thought was that it was abducted by an alien space ship.  Then my next thought was that I must’ve not heard the news correctly. 

            In this day and age how can a plane possibly go missing?  I mean we do have radar, don’t we?  We have satellites capable of tracking pretty much everything, so why can’t they track planes over the water?  The mere fact that they obviously can’t is quite scary.  We think we are so smart, have come so far in our understanding of science but we lose a large plane?  Maybe they just aren’t telling us everything?

            Then the sadness sets in.  So many lives have been lost.

            At this point you may be asking yourself what this has to do with writing?  Susan Grant is a New York Times Bestselling author who writes romance and also is a commercial airline pilot.  One of her first books, Contact, was a Futuristic Sci-Fi Romance.  It had an intriguing storyline involving a commercial flight from LAX to Hawaii which naturally flew over the ocean, and then, of course, there is a major incident on the plane.  The Captain has a heart attack and dies and there is fear the plane has been hijacked. It appeared the plane would crash and everyone would die.  But instead the plane is beamed aboard a large alien spacecraft.  It was a fabulous read!  And it was at least 10 years ago.  However, the story was quite memorable, as I have mentioned it on occasion throughout the years.  I am sure at the time she wrote this novel she never dreamed another commercial airliner would go missing over the ocean, but it happened only a few weeks ago.

            They always say the best place to look for story ideas is by reading the current news stories.  Headlines read, “Airliner missing on flight over the ocean.”  Story line reads, “Airliner missing while crossing the ocean abducted by alien spacecraft.”  Susan’s story was great, but I bet we could all write an intriguing story from that news headline.  They all would be great stories and they all would be different.  So write away!