THE UFO FILES
PETER BROOKESMITH surveys the latest fads and flaps from the world of ufological research
STORM AREA 51!
I imagine it is more comfortable to wear bloomers than to be caught making a bloomer, but this is ufology after all, where you can get away with almost anything. (For collectors of useless information, the ladies’ undergarment is so-called not because of its shape, but after Mrs Amelia J Bloomer (1818-94), “an American social reformer who advocated a similar garment” according to my Oxford dictionary.) Stars and spearcarriers of ufology have been doing quite well on the bloomer front lately.
First and most spectacular has been the suggestion that on 20 September a whole bunch of people “storm” Area 51 and, one presumes, drag the aliens hidden there into the daylight. This was posted on Facebook by one Matty Roberts – who meant it as a joke. As might have been clear from this: “We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry. If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Let’s see them aliens.” In case you didn’t know, a ‘naruto run’ is an eccentric form of locomotion named after a Japanese anime character. And he’d better be a lot quicker than Usain Bolt, given that a round from an M4/M16 rifle leaves the barrel at around 3,000ft per second. That could put a sting in your tail.
All of this just-a-bit-obvious satire appears to have gone over the heads of a sizeable chunk of the ufologically-oriented population: some two million people had signed up to join in the storming at the time of writing. Rather bizarrely (but then I have lived a sheltered life), the lewd website PornHub reported that since this wheeze went viral, searches on their site for matters related to sex with aliens had increased by an astounding 60,000 per cent. Some people really should be careful what they wish for, shouldn’t they? Granted, it’s hard to know how many of those 1.3 million would-be stormtroopers have signed up jus’ fer the craic and how many seriously think they can make a difference to Area 51’s hefty defences without having an uncomfortable difference made to themselves. The ‘camo dudes’ are, let’s not forget, authorised to use deadly force. The US Air Force, no doubt in hope of avoiding anything so embarrassing as bloodshed or even a broken nose, solemnly intoned that it was “ready to protect America and its assets” and reminded us all that Area 51 is an “open training range for the US Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces” – an exemplary deployment of military euphemism and understatement. Personally, I can’t wait to see how many nutters turn up, but do suggest they watch their assets.
BREAKING THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT
Speaking of Area 51, the irrepressible Nick Pope has of late not so much ignored the law of unintended consequences, as broken the Eleventh Commandment. Back in June, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson showed the world a clip of a ‘UFO’ hovering, or maybe rising, over the secret base. The video in question was originally posted on the YouTube channel ‘Adventures with Christian’ and was subsequently reproduced in British tabloids such as the Sun and Daily Express. Nick Pope said he had no idea what it was, but it was “fascinating” and he would be analysing it “over the next few weeks”. Why should it take him so long? It’s a goddam’ water tower, visible as such on any number of shots of the base. Silly boy.
The even less repressible Tom DeLonge has gone one better than that in trampling the Eleventh Commandment. Mick West (metabunk.org) noticed a “curious image” on the TTSAAS website, “looking like a beam of light shooting up into space. People wonder if this is meant to represent beamed energy propulsion.”
West, blessed be he, discovered it’s possible to resize the picture, revealing a rather weird structure at the top. Flip that upside down, though, and it turns out to be a mountainous island. A Norwegian one, in fact, and the picture shows a rocket being fired to gather data on the aurora borealis, in 1952.––
As West says: “What seems like a widening beam of light shooting up, is actually a long exposure of a rocket, going in the opposite direction (in the image). Removing context allows all kinds of speculation,” he ends drily.
Oh, and in case any of you were wondering, the Eleventh Commandment – long expunged from Biblical texts by killjoy scholars – reads: “Thou shalt not get caught.”