Amos Thibodeau Jr. was not what you would call a finicky sleeper. Born in the bayou, he had lived in the same house for the whole of his ten years of life. He was, by all accounts, acclimated to nightly concertos of bullfrog, alligator, and swamp noises. Even occasional poachers fishing with dynamite would have been hard pressed to interrupt Amos’ nightly journey to the land of nod.

Fact was that Amos could pretty much be counted on to sleep through just about anything.

Two days before April Fool’s though, Amos awakened in the middle of the night and hollered for his daddy, screaming as if the old devil himsely had just paid his bedroom a visit.

There a white light in the sky, Amos told his daddy fearfully, and it made a humming sound with a whistle, like a fast wind in the trees. It hovered over the house and then took off like a shot.

It was a flying saucer, Amos insisted. “Truth be.”

It took two hours to calm him down and get him back to bed. For a long time after that, Amos slept much more lightly.