You could argue that they chose this fanciful plastic overlay to cover memories which were much more ordinary, less glamorous and much more treacherous -- abuse by their own kind. It is not unusual for false overlays to be laid in over painful memories to act as a sort of shield or shock absorber. The interesting thing is that so many of them, from so many different locaations and _presumably_ without cross-distribution of information, came up with common pastterns of story -- the Grays, their demeanour, etc.. Those are the strange part to me.

A