1 Southway Junior School's Alien Abduction

You've probably noticed the pattern by now; while American schools tend to be blunt and direct with their policies of child abuse, schools in Britain prefer the more subtle and more deeply-scarring tactic of straight-up batshit lunacy. That's the best way we can explain this story: On July 10, 2009, the students at the UK Southway Junior School in Burgess Hill witnessed an alien abduction of their teacher.

The school had an amazing effects budget.

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It started with a shrieking, piercing noise and a cascade of colorful lights, after which the principal informed the students that a UFO crash-landed near the school. Following a trail of debris, the students laid their eyes on an extraterrestrial space craft, from which aliens emerged. Then the aliens kidnapped a member of the staff and, if Hollywood didn't lie to us, probed his rectum with various phallic objects.

Of course, the abduction later turned out to be a "special performance" by the school staff, who even got the freaking police in on it, providing budget special effects in the form of sirens and flashing patrol car lights. Why? To stimulate the kids' imagination for writing assignments of course!

Well, mission freaking accomplished because, by the end of this, they stimulated so many imaginations of that many of the seven-year-olds broke down in tears and complete confusion.

"Why didn't I get to go on the spaceship ride?!"

Damn, who could have known that kids who still believe in Santa Claus would have trouble telling reality from fiction?

Cezary Jan Strusiewicz is a freelance online journalist and Japanese-English-Polish translator. Contact him via c.j.strusiewicz@gmail.com

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