I have a pond in my backyard. I also have several trees in my backyard. Not surprisingly (since I live in North Carolina), this means my property is home to both tree frogs and pond frogs. But during my first spring at this house, when the frogs started their nightly hollering, I noticed some of the sounds coming from the pond didn’t seem…natural. In addition to the low-pitched croaks of the pond frogs and the high-pitched peeps of the tree frogs there came a most unusual sound. A sound unlike anything I’ve heard anywhere, except maybe in 1950’s science fiction movies. I concluded that my pond had been invaded by alien frogs. I have waited over three years for the opportunity to make First Contact with these beings from another world. In that time, I have seen a few tree frogs, and many pond frogs – but no aliens. Finally, last week, one of the alien frogs made an appearance on my patio furniture. Behold…the first known photos of a frog from another planet…

Since I already had my camera out, and he was just a few feet away, I also grabbed a gratuitous shot of Bear lazin’ in the shade…

The frog and I are still working on finding a translator, so we can begin a knowledge transfer between our two great cultures.