Her Trip Was Much Shorter

Enjoyed Alan Citron’s piece today on “A Wounded Community”--Venice (The Times, May 24).

For a postscript, I recall the day some years back when I was a reporter for the late L.A. Daily News and covered a gathering of nuts at Giant Rock Airport, a desert landing strip on the Mojave--the “World’s First Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention” in 1954.

No UFO landed, but near midnight a brilliant ball of fire exploded overhead and by morning there were 2,500 different versions of what happened . . . little green men had parachuted down and run for cover, and a lovely lady from Venus appeared in their midst. (Ignored was the story of two laughing GI’s from nearby Twentynine Palms Marine Base, who insisted they’d merely filled a weather balloon with hydrogen, attached a long fuse, and set it adrift.)

Well, I had to find that gal from Venus and interview her, and lo, behind Giant Rock, there she was--a slick chick dressed in gold lame slacks, wearing bright green lipstick and blue fingernails.

“Uh, are you the gal from Venus?” I questioned.

“No,” she laughed. “I drove up from Venice.”

Incidentally, I used the anecdote in my latest book, “Hello? Who’s Out There? The Search for Extraterrestrial Life.”

DON DWIGGINS

Malibu