And Phil Hoyle, of the APFU, says the curious lack of blood or footprints at the scene - despite the surgical removal of large amounts of tissue - means extraterrestrials can't be ruled out as the cause of the attacks.
These marauders, or pirates, came from Scandinavia--what is now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The people who lived there were Norsemen, or Northmen. Those Norsemen who took part in these swift, cruel raids along the coast were called Vikings. The Vikings came to be the most feared raiders of their time and were the only Norsemen with whom most Europeans came in contact. Their name was given to the era that dated from about AD 740 to about 1050--the Viking Age.
While the term Viking is used in a general way to describe the people of Scandinavia during the medieval period, it's really a name for a profession -- it's like if we called all Spanish or French people Pirates. The Scandinavians were also explorers, farmers, fishermen and merchants -- not just Vikings. Indeed, the people who are usually referred to as Vikings were actually made up of several different groups, including the Danes, the Swedes and the Norwegians, who were themselves often broken into small petty kingdoms.