Passing fancy
That was frickin' sweet.
What we did have was a catalogue that arrived at the school every month or so that allowed us to choose from a motley selection that had been approved for our youthful consumption. My mom was very indulgent about these, letting me pick out pretty much anything I wanted provided that I actually read it when it came in. This was a little before franchise series really got underway, but stories of the bizarre and/or mysterious were still incredibly popular. I got my fix off of books on cryptozoology, cryptoarcheology, the occult, paranormal activity (both studies and stories of), and UFOlogy.
I had it bad for extra-terrestrials. I read everything I could on UFOs and on alien abductions in hopes that I would one day know enough about what I was looking for that I could actually have my own sighting (... and still be smart enough to avoid getting captured because the whole medical experimentation thing was freaky.) I wanted to prove, once and for all, that there was nothing weird or crackpot about the idea that we were not alone. Actually, in retrospect I'm pretty sure that I really wanted to prove that I could have a genuine fear experience and keep my shit together, but at the time I was young and not thinking altogether clearly.
I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was when, on a class trip to a radio station, I found a yellowed index card taped to a wall above a phone that had the number for the USAF hotline for UFO sightings. It didn't matter that it was a cheesy little station broadcasting from a cramped second floor office in beautiful downtown Augusta, Maine. Finding that number felt like a watershed moment. It was such a huge find. In my head, it was clear that They wouldn't have the number if it didn't happen here. I never did see one. 'Course, I never got canonized as a saint by Rome either, but that's an entirely different story.
Since, I have had a legitimate fear experience or two, usually involving much more mundane (though no less inexplicable) circumstances. Sometimes, I've even kept my shit together.