By Tim Binnall
A miscreant in Michigan recently made off with an alien statue that stood outside the home of a 102-year-old woman and her family are appealing to the culprit's better angels in the hopes that the ne'er-do-well will return the piece. According to a local media report, Freda VanderLaan received the sizeable extraterrestrial artwork as a Mother's Day gift around six years ago. The statue subsequently occupied a prominent place on their property in the community of Ashland Township until it suddenly vanished last weekend. "I brought the dog out and I was standing there looking and I'm like, something's missing," Freda's son Dennis recalled, "and then all of a sudden it just hit me, it's gone."
The theft of the piece is particularly dispiriting to the VanderLaans as Freda has Alzheimer's and the alien was an important part of her daily routine. "When she goes to the table for coffee and breakfast, she can see it out of her big window, so she says hi to the birds and she waves to the statue," her daughter-in-law Daynelle explained, "as she forgets the other stuff, you kind of grasp onto the few things she does remember and that was just one of them. She just misses it." Conceding that the theft was likely a bit of mischief-making on the part of an individual unaware of what it means to the family, they are hopeful that by revealing the piece's backstory, they may inspire a change of heart in the person who stole it.
"Is it still a prank once you find out it belongs to a 102-year-old lady, who was her friend," Daynelle mused. To that end, the family indicate that they have no desire to enlist law enforcement in the matter and simply wish for the sticky-fingered bandit to bring the statue back to where it belongs outside their home. Her daughter-in-law went on to observe that this would probably be the best course of action for the thief as they are undoubtedly unable to display the piece in their own yard nor tell anyone that they took it, since word of the caper has spread throughout the town and "the whole community is looking" for the beloved alien.