ALIENS ABDUCT WEEKLY WORLD NEWS!

BY BELINDA M. PASCHAL

The king of Elvis sightings is dead.

After 28 years, the tabloid that titillated us with its outlandish scoops about aliens, Bigfoot and the celebrity undead, cranked out its last issue on Aug. 27.

The Weekly World News, which billed itself as "The World's Only Reliable Newspaper," sported a front page that looked like a cut-and-paste project by a demented 10-year-old. It was printed in black and white, but it never lacked color.

Certainly, the glossier National Enquirer, Star, Globe and Sun are considered more “prestigious” (a relative term here) among the tabloid-erati, but the WWN had something those publications lack: A sense of humor. Behind the bunny-battling matadors, demon-possessed toilets and exposès that Dick Cheney is a robot (I’m still not convinced that story’s fake) was a major element of “nudge-nudge, wink-wink.”

The WWN, which inspired faux-news outlets like The Onion, holds the distinction of being the only tabloid to inspire two musicals—David Byrne's 1986 movie “True Stories” and the off-Broadway “Bat Boy: The Musical.” And unlike other tabs, big stars heartily endorse it. In the book Bat Boy Lives!: The Weekly World News Guide to Politics, Culture, Celebrities, Alien Abductions, and the Mutant Freaks that Shape Our World, Johnny Depp states, “The only gossip I'm interested in is in the Weekly World News." And in the movie “Men in Black,” Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) calls the WWN “the best damn investigative reporting on the planet."

When it came to not-so-real stars, the tabloid had some of its own. The legendary Bat Boy’s adventures included leading cops on a three-state chase, wooing Hillary Rodham Clinton, foiling a terrorist bomb plot and being knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Bigfoot kept a lumberjack as his love slave, while his female counterpart, a Sasquatch hooker, posed nude for a girlie-mag centerfold. Then there was the undead Elvis, who, in the paper’s best-selling issue, was found holed up in a Kalamazoo hideout.

In its heyday, the WWN boasted a million-plus readers and represented the best—and worst—of sensationalism. Its absurd headlines (“Concrete Enemas A Bad Idea, Docs Warn”) entertained millions more as they waited in grocery checkout lines.

Here are 10 more of the many great headlines in WWN history:

* “Space Aliens Are Sending Their Kids To Earth’s Universities & They’re Making Our Top Students Look Like Idiots!”

* “200 Elves Laid Off As Santa Moves Operation To Honduras Sweatshop”

* “Kitten Accused Of Murder—Sign The Petition Or Fluffy Dies!”

* “Why Moses Wandered In The Desert For 40 Years: He Lost The Map!"

* “Osama And Saddam Adopt Shaved Baby Ape” (A follow-up to “Saddam & Osama In Love!”)

* “Meek Sue to Inherit the Earth!”

* “Aliens Passing Gas Caused Hole In Ozone Layer!”

* “Loch Ness Monster Surfaces In Jersey Bathtub”

* “Ka-BOOB! Woman’s Breast Implant Explodes!”

* “Carpal Tuna Syndrome . . . Computer User's Fingers Turning Into Fish!”

Alas, poor Bat Boy … we hardly knew ye. But there’s good news for WWN fans: The tabloid lives on in cyberspace at www.weeklyworldnews.com. If your computer freezes while you’re reading, blame it on the aliens.