Comedy is usually about the setup and the punchline, but sometimes, it’s just about a beat-up plastic chair and a woman who has seen way too much of the galaxy’s underside. If you’ve spent any time on YouTube in the last decade, you’ve seen it. Ryan Gosling is trying—and failing miserably—to keep a straight face while Kate McKinnon describes being "tapped on the knocker" by a gray alien with a bad attitude. This is the SNL abducted by aliens sketch, formally known as "Close Encounter," and it’s basically a masterclass in how a single performer can hijack an entire show through pure, unadulterated grit.
It shouldn't work. The premise is dead simple: three people get abducted by extraterrestrials and are interviewed by the government afterward. Two of them had a spiritual, transcendent experience. They saw the light. They felt the oneness of the universe. Then there's Ms. Rafferty.
The Anatomy of a Breakdown
Kate McKinnon’s Ms. Rafferty isn't interested in the majesty of the cosmos. She’s worried about her slacks. While Cecily Strong and the guest host (whether it’s Gosling, Casey Affleck, or Benedict Cumberbatch) talk about the beauty of the "Great Beyond," Rafferty is busy explaining how she fell out of a craft with her "coot-coot and prune" hanging out for all of Long Island to see.
Why does this specific SNL abducted by aliens bit resonate so much more than the hundreds of other sketches NBC churns out? Honestly, it’s the contrast. You have the high-concept sci-fi tropes of "The Grays" and "The Light" crashing head-first into the mundane reality of a chain-smoking woman who treats an alien abduction like a delayed flight at LaGuardia. It’s gritty. It’s gross. It feels real in a way that "prestige" comedy rarely does because it leans into the physical discomfort of the human body.
Most people don't realize that the first iteration of this sketch, which aired on December 5, 2015, wasn't actually supposed to be a "breaking" sketch. Ryan Gosling is a known giggler, sure, but the sheer intensity of McKinnon’s performance caught everyone off guard. When she got in his face and started demonstrating how the aliens poked her "with a drafty little finger," the composure in Studio 8H evaporated. You can see Aidy Bryant and Bobby Moynihan in the background of various versions of this sketch, and even the veteran cast members struggle.
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Why Ms. Rafferty Works (And Others Don't)
SNL has a long history of recurring characters, but they often get stale. You know the drill: the catchphrase stays the same, the beats are identical, and by the third time, you're checking your phone. But "Close Encounter" feels different every time because the writers—primarily Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell—upped the ante on the descriptive prose.
- The Linguistic Creativity: McKinnon doesn't just use slang; she invents a whole vocabulary of biological indignity. Words like "terp-slurp," "knocker-knocker," and "pink pocket" shouldn't be funny on their own, but in her gravelly, world-weary voice, they become legendary.
- The Physicality: There is a specific way McKinnon sits in that chair. She’s slumped. Her legs are wide. She looks like she’s been through a car wash without the car.
- The Foil: You need the "normal" people. Without Cecily Strong’s wide-eyed wonder, McKinnon’s cynicism has nothing to bounce off of. It’s the classic comedy "straight man" dynamic, but amplified by the fact that the straight men are talking about space angels.
I’ve watched the "Near-Death Experience" variant—the one where they talk about heaven—and while it’s funny, it never quite hits the heights of the original SNL abducted by aliens concept. There’s something specifically hilarious about the idea that aliens, with all their advanced technology, are actually just incompetent creeps who don't know how to handle a human woman from the tri-state area.
The "Gosling Effect" and the Art of the Break
We have to talk about the breaking. Some SNL purists hate it. They think it’s unprofessional. They think it’s "doing a Fallon." But in the case of the SNL abducted by aliens sketches, the breaking is essential to the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) of the comedy itself. When Ryan Gosling loses it, the audience feels like they’re in on a secret. It validates that what McKinnon is doing is actually, objectively hilarious in the moment.
It’s not just Gosling, though. When Casey Affleck hosted, he tried to play it more stoic, and it gave the sketch a different, almost darker energy. But the fans always go back to the 2017 "Another Close Encounter" where McKinnon actually uses her butt to demonstrate an alien "investigation" on Gosling’s face. It was crude, it was ridiculous, and it was the most-watched clip of the season.
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The Cultural Legacy of Ms. Rafferty
Believe it or not, there's a weird bit of truth in these sketches. If you look at actual "UFO encounter" reports—the kind collected by organizations like MUFON—they are often split between people who claim "transcendental" experiences and those who describe "clinical" and "uncomfortable" medical procedures. The SNL writers clearly did a tiny bit of homework on the tropes of the subculture. They took the "Abduction Narrative" popularized by people like Whitley Strieber and turned it on its ear.
Instead of the "Space Brothers" bringing a message of peace, Ms. Rafferty’s aliens are basically just cosmic TSA agents who can’t find their keys.
What’s the takeaway here? Why does this sketch matter in the grand timeline of Saturday Night Live?
It matters because it proved that Kate McKinnon was the undisputed heavyweight champion of her era. She didn't need a political impression or a flashy costume. She just needed a cigarette (unlit, obviously, for NBC standards) and a story about her "grass shack."
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How to Revisit the Magic
If you’re looking to binge these, don’t just stick to the main YouTube clips. Look for the "Cut for Time" versions or the behind-the-scenes stories from the writers' room. There’s a specific interview where Seth Meyers talks about the "magic" of McKinnon’s character work that really puts it into perspective.
Next Steps for the Super-Fan:
- Watch chronologically: Start with the Dec 2015 episode (Ryan Gosling), then move to the 2016 Casey Affleck version, and finally the 2017 "return" of Gosling.
- Observe the prop work: Pay attention to how McKinnon uses her cigarette. It’s a masterclass in using a single prop to define an entire character’s history.
- Check the "Near-Death" variants: While the SNL abducted by aliens theme is the peak, the "Death and Rebirth" sketch with the same characters is a fascinating look at how to port a character into a new setting without losing the soul of the joke.
The reality is that SNL is hit-or-miss. We all know that. But for those five or six minutes when Ms. Rafferty is explaining how a three-foot-tall gray alien "punted her beaver," the show is as good as it has ever been in its 50-year history. It’s raw, it’s stupid, and it’s perfectly executed.