David is a 10-year-old boy. He wants to buy something for his mother, because next Monday is her birthday. David’s father gives him 5 dollars a week and David puts 2 dollars a week into a box in his room. After three months, David has 24 dollars in the box. He takes 20 dollars out of his box and goes to a big store. He wants something really great for his mother.

David sees a beautiful brooch(胸针). It is in the shape of(呈……形状) his favorite animal. It is only $17.00. “I like it,” thinks David. “My mother loves brooches, and she will like it, too.” He buys the brooch and takes it home. He puts it in a beautiful box, and puts the box on the dining table. David is very happy. He thinks he will see the smile on his mother’s face.

But when his mother opens the box, she screams(尖叫) . She sees a spider(蜘蛛) in the box! She is afraid of spiders so much!

People have talked about whether aliens（from another planet）have been to the Earth or not for thousands of years. Some pictures drawn over 50,000 years ago are thought to be the first pictures of spacecrafts. Alien spaceships are often called flying saucers（飞碟）. The first person to use this name an American, Kenneth Arnold. On 24^th June, 1947, he was flying a small plane in Washington State in the USA when he saw something strange. “I was looking out of the window, when I saw nine saucer—like things in front of me,” Arnold said.

Two other Americans, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, said that aliens took them into a flying saucer while they were fishing to the Mississippi River on the night of 11^th October, 1973. It was a dark night. The two men were sitting in their fishing boat when they saw a bright light. It was hanging in the air over the water and it looked like a flying saucer. It pulled Hickson and Parjer into their spacecraft. In the spacecraft the aliens had a close look at the two men and then sent them back to their boat. “The aliens were in a pale colour and had very small eyes,” Hickson said. “But they didn’t hurt us.”

In 1983, Pioneer 10, an American spacecraft, went into space. On the outside of the spacecraft are 13 pictures of men and women and a map of space. If aliens find Pioneer 10, they will know how to get to the Earth.