The wily online is at it again. This time there are UFO’s over London! I believe in alien life in the universe. The possibility of aliens visiting earth doesn’t seem entirely wackadoodle. However, this recent UFO extravaganza has a certain “Blair Witch” feel to it. Speaking of “witch”, where is Josh? Josh? JOSH? Where is he? He has the MAP!
Two hours later:
Girl: Josh? JOSH? Where is he?
Guy: I don’t know. Doesn’t this feel like it’s taking too long? Do you think we should do something different?
Girl: You mean Josh being missing isn’t scary anymore?
Guy: Not really.
Girl: Well, I’m out of ideas.
For those of you that were lost on that reference. I’m referring to the 1999 movie spectacle The Blair Witch Project. This movie was preceded with television specials and leaked footage designed to make you think the events in the movie really happened. They used the radio broadcast “War of the Worlds” marketing tactic. If people believe that the event was real, the hype will spread on it’s own. The hype was so big that people flocked to see this movie which was essentially a group of teenagers lost in the woods, with “something mysterious” doing spooky “things”.
On a side note, while l was leaving the theater from this movie, I overheard the best after the movie comment ever made. An old lady with a bitter and raspy voice said and I quote, “This movie would have been better in Texas.”
Let’s take a moment to really think about that comment. My brother used to live in Houston. I live in Albuquerque. The 16 hour journey from the two cities was a regular occurrence in my life. I’ve went through Amarillo, Lubbock, Fort Stockton, Dallas, San Antonio, and just about any route through the massive state of Texas during various trips. I can assure you that most of the state is dessert, plains, hills, and terrain where you can see vast distances on the horizon. Maybe The Blair Witch Project would have been better in Texas.
Girl: Josh? JOSH!
Guy: Look! He is there on the horizon!
Girl: Oh good! He has the map.
Guy: Nevermind. Blair Witch got him.
Girl: I guess we better not go that way. Look, I can see the city in the distance.
Guy: Let’s go that way.
Roll credits.
To cut the old lady a break, maybe she was from Houston, where the surrounding country side is forest, on a flat plain, where one could climb the highest tree and see for miles…
UFO’s? London? What does this have to do with an old lady in Texas? Nothing really. I just get sidetracked easily. Oooh! A red dot is on the ground. Haha! Hehe! Wheee! Ahhh! It’s hiding in the vent now. Maybe if I wait long enough, it will come back.
The UFO’s over London is a set of videos released on the internet that shows footage of alien crafts flying over the BBC building (yes, the building with access to special effects technology irony is not lost on me). The footage has a eerie “real” factor in the sense that there are several videos from different angles capturing the same event. Before I comment, I will show you the strongest video of the few:
While it looks very real to someone like me with no video effect expertise, the fact remains that only the people making the videos saw these UFO’s. In fact, I even went to the BBC’s website and couldn’t find a news article about this event on the day it happened. The fact remains that the only news is about the videos themselves and not anything at all about the event.
London is a pretty big city. OK a fucking huge city. UFO’s dancing in broad daylight would probably produce more eyewitnesses and amateur video than the current “evidence” at hand. Who doesn’t have a video camera on their phone? Why didn’t people call the BBC asking if they knew what was happening? And why didn’t the BBC tell all their employees to point a camera out the window when the calls started rolling in? Where are all the eye witnesses? Not just people in the video but the millions of people that live in the city?
One could of course object and say that people without an open mind would not see the UFO anyway. I say please find me this person without an open mind. Even the Catholic Church believes in the possibility of alien life, and those guys took a little convincing about the roundness of our planet. Most of us Earthlings, have seen Science Fiction movies and are already sort of “primed” to understand the concept of a spaceship. Should a spaceship appear over a major urban center. You bet there would be slews of video.
I have to say this is The Blair Witch II: Electric Boogaloo and a carefully designed marketing ploy to make a forth coming movie seem real. However, the scope of the design is mis-focused. The Blair Witch used on a small town with a small group of people. It’s easy to believe tales about remote areas because there wouldn’t be a lot witnesses. It’s easy to control the information. London is a different story.
Ultimately if an alien presence wanted to make itself known to human kind, a large city like London would be great place to do it. There is no possible way to refute the evidence. However, a redneck with a moonshine still in the backwoods makes a great target to study if you don’t want to be known (I imagine alien tour companies offering redneck abduction packages). So have aliens visited earth? I don’t know. Did they visit London June, 2011? Probably not. Though I’d love see aliens in schleppy Union Jack t-shirts with tacky Big Ben trinkets.
Time Burrito 