From Bill: About 1982, there was a splinter group of Cepheid called Tesseract. It was ostensibly a dining and literary club, though its primary purpose was to get university funds to do fun things.
Anyhow, at some point, we checked out a university van and went to Houston to visit bookstores. On the way there, we stopped in Hempstead and bought a yard alien for the Monkey House. My recollection is that we hurriedly explained what our plans were to Roxanne, who looked a bit surprised as we rushed to purchase a patently racist symbol of the unreconstructed South.
Anyhow, Cathy painted it.
At this time I no longer remember whether it was John Tim or Steve who attached the antennae and ray gun.
Attached is a photo that Bob took of how it looked during the 2008 AggieCon.
The glowing features were courtesy of John Tim.
You can tell this is an alien artifact, because every year it gets heavier when we have to move it for AggieCon <g>