It has been a strange week.

A 13-foot Burmese python in the Florida Everglades burst after trying to swallow a six-foot, live alligator whole.

Last Wednesday a Swedish news agency reported that a hunter was knocked unconscious when his son shot a flying Canadian goose which then fell on his head. "I guess it wanted revenge," Ulf Ilback said. The goose weighed 13 pounds, and fell from 60 feet. Mr. Ilback spent the next two days in bed, probably eating roasted goose.

Meanwhile, a world conference on extra-terrestrial encounters concludes today in Lima, Peru. Among the featured speakers is Jonathan Reed, a former child-developmental psychologist who says an alien lived with him in his house and communicated through telepathy. Reed named the alien "Freddy," and wears a bracelet he said it gave him.

In a world where pythons devour alligators and geese fall from the sky and aliens give away bracelets, I'm reminded of the maxim, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you." 9-11 and the war on terror has made us all less sure of the future. Hurricane officials are running out of names for this year's storms, and forecasters say that another major hurricane may develop before the season is out.

It's a dangerous world out there. Wouldn't it be great if you knew someone who saw the pythons before they try to devour you and geese before they fall on your head, who knows where the next hurricane will land before it forms? Hold that thought, and share this story with me.