No kidding! My parents took me along to see it in the theater at night because of the AC. I was only five at the time and it scared the dickens out of me. The sand pit scene with the cops and the kid discovering the mark on the backs of the necks of those taken. Didn't know which grown-ups to trust, but when I first heard quicksand spoken I knew what it meant, space monsters down there. Never saw it again, but in my late sixties I can still recall the effect it had on me..
My brother and I, both now in our 60s, were out camping way back in the boondocks three years ago when we spotted a strange glowing green ball shoot up into the sky from a remote canyon and then go back down into it again. For both of us, our first thoughts were “Invaders from Mars.”