May He Live Long and Prospero

Original artwork by Chris White

This story made the news in the December 10th edition of the Denver Post, but it comes from nearby my previous neck of the woods. About 35 miles south of Greensboro, Siler City, N.C. is a long way from Altair IV, but one of the city's inhabitants has a vision that's as grand as anything dreamed up by William Shakespeare or Gene Roddenberry. And I'm not talking about Aunt Bee's pickles.

He's already a stock market prognosticator, but junk collector Stuart Ellis also wants to be the "Christmas-light king of the world..."

Ellis is selling his flying saucer so he can pay off his credit-card and mortgage debt and then stake himself as a stock-options trader. "I'm going to excel in the stock market and make me some money, and then I'm going to be the Christmas-light king of the world," he said.

Ellis lives on 17 acres with thousands of trees. He's wrapped hundreds of them with about 650,000 lights. But he doesn't have enough money to power them up. So he's selling his saucer.

A Calabasas, Calif., auction company called Profiles in History hopes to auction Ellis' spaceship for $80,000 to $120,000 on Thursday. The auctioneer also hopes to sell Luke Skywalker's light saber from "The Empire Strikes Back," among other Hollywood treasures.

"My mom called me on the phone," Ellis said. "She thought I was totally broke. Which I am not. And she said go find something to sell." He turned to the 82-inch-diameter spaceship hanging from his garage ceiling. It was built for the groundbreaking 1956 sci-fi flick "Forbidden Planet." It also appeared in six episodes of "The Twilight Zone" before MGM auctioned it in 1970s.

Ellis, who grew up going to flea markets and auctions for fun, said he bought it for $150.

Learning to day-trade stock options, Ellis said he believes the Dow Jones industrial average eventually will fall to 500. "I just wanted to say that to you for no reason at all," he explained, "but in about seven to eight years, you're going to understand."

And perhaps by then, someone will look down upon Earth and see a patch of light streaming into space from North Carolina.

"Everybody has a stupid dream," Ellis said. "I have always wanted to be the Christmas-light king of the world."