WINNIPEG, Oct. 28—In an effort to outwit the roving bands of giant carnivorous centipedes that rained out of alien spacecraft late Sunday night, locals have taken to smearing themselves with dog shit and hiding out in deer stands and tree houses while singing show tunes.

Vice Chairwoman Shiniq Takanaka advised citizens to keep their stereos turned up and their government issued cyanide capsules within arm’s reach at all times. “The centipedes seem to dislike music, revelry, and happiness of any kind,” she said, between loud slurps of a rainbow slushy in her famously large podium cupholder. “They may avoid you, or at least spare you the agony of a slow death, if you sing or play some happy tunes on your sound system.”

“Then again,” she added, “they may not.”

“We believe the centipedes to be the first wave of an alien terraforming effort,” said Imperial Polytechnic research biologist Dr. Rowdy Cokebender. “This would explain why they consume everything in their path and excrete only vast quantities of sulfurous gas.” The gas, he said, is the source of the horrific stench that precedes the relentless approach of the centipedes by several hours, as they methodically sweep every square inch of the countryside.

As to why the creatures spend hours vivisecting humans, rather than consuming them with freakish speed as they do other organisms, Dr. Cokebender could offer no precise answer.

“Unfounded speculation is the enemy of good science,” he said. “But if I had to guess I’d say they hate us with a hate that is boundless and unceasing.”