If that doesn’t get them here, nothing will.
It seems like our general policy with aliens should be a “live and let live” kind of thing. Are they out there? Who knows (besides our government of course).
But if they are, do we really want to be trying to contact them without knowing what they’re capable of? Sure, they may be friendly and we get a chill alien like ET. But it seems like the risk of potentially attracting hostile beings from another planet who destroys the earth outweighs the positives of…having a cool-ass alien to drink bourbon with?
Well apparently some scientists in Kentucky are willing to take the risk, and are trying to attract these extraterrestrials to their state with promises of – what else – bourbon and horse racing.
Scientists in Lexington recently sent an encoded infrared message to TRAPPIST-1, a star which has at least seven exoplanets (planets outside of the solar system) and is believed to be a potentially hospitable environment for life.
It’s all part of a campaign by the city’s tourism department, VisitLex, to potentially convince alien life to visit the city. Because the first place any extraterrestrial life form would want to visit when they reach our planet is…Lexington, Kentucky, right?
The message coded bitmap message contains information renderings of humans and horses, as well as some information that would be useful if they ever did join us here on Earth, like prime numbers and the periodic table.
But also included in the message are the molecular structures for the Kentucky’s most popular beverage: Bourbon.
Dr. Robert Lodder, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, explained the thinking behind trying to contact potential life outside of our solar system:
“We are targeting the TRAPPIST-1 system because we might actually get an answer in somebody’s lifetime if there’s somebody there watching.”
Of course it may be awhile before they get a response from ET: The message won’t reach its destination for another 38 years and 261 days.
But VisitLex has put up a countdown so you can see exactly how much longer it will be before the aliens hear from Lexington, and they’ve already created a tourism website for any aliens who want to see what Lexington has to offer before they commit to make the journey:
“Lexington would be a great place to make first contact. You can land your spacecraft here. You can see the Bluegrass. You may even be able to ride a horse, depending on how big you are.”
I dunno man, this just seems like a bad idea to me. Maybe I’ve just watched too many sci-fi movies, but I’m pretty sure this is one way to get the earth destroyed.
Aliens In Miami?
Lexington may have already lost the race to get aliens to their city though.
There’s wild speculation flying around on social media that a massive police presence at a Miami mall was not to break up an alleged fight among youths, who were also said to be wreaking havoc and setting off fireworks, which could’ve been mistaken for gunfire.
Instead, people on social media are asserting that “reports” of “shadow aliens” who are eight to 10 feet tall were seen roaming about.
You gotta read the way some people are writing about this. Straight-up Crazytown. Bananaland.
I can’t say that I can fully explain the “shadowy creature” being captured in front of all those police cars, but it could easily be some janky VFX creation by someone who manipulated the initial footage. Here’s what a Miami PD spokesperson told TMZ:
“What is seen on this clip is the shadow of someone walking. If you look at the bottom of the shadow, you can see the person. No creature.”
If only these people could think critically for one second. If aliens were going to reveal themselves to the world after all this time, they’d probably be a little less conspicuous about it. You’re telling me if they had the sophisticated technology for interstellar travel that they’d clumsily be found out once they got here? In a Miami mall of all places?
There’s just no way. But don’t let that stop people from running with a narrative.
Trust me. I want to believe. The massive police presence is sketchy. In fact, if you just took people at their word on Twitter, you might begin to believe all this was true, too.
HOWEVER. We run into a problem where the big smoking gun a lot of people are citing in this alleged mass extraterrestrial encounter is a witness who totally made his story up. Don’t get me wrong. It’s compelling, even convincing! An X account with over 100,000 followers put sosa.pippen’s video out mere hours ago as a credible account of events. Not putting “alleged” in front of the misspelled “eyewitness” is the cherry on top:
Alas…sosa.pippen on TikTok admitted to lying about the whole thing on Friday morning.
@sosa.pippen♬ original sound – sosa pippen
Dude has never been to Miami in his life. LOL. His actual bio on TikTok reads as follows, “Just trust u…nothing or nobody else. (Side note) I was dropped off here in a 🛸 .”
A UFO emoji is the punctuating end of his TikTok bio. Guess nobody bothered to vet that far. And just read the comments on his retraction video (he took down the original “alien witness” one). The vast majority of commenters are of the opinion that some men in black suits came to him, forced him to take the first vid down, and that he’s being silenced by the government for speaking the truth.
Let’s let Uncle Colin weigh in on the mass hysteria. Couldn’t say it much better myself.
Again, why there was such a massive police presence, I couldn’t tell you. Just seems pretty unlikely that “ALIENS!” was the reason. I hesitate to present any more conspiratorial rhetoric from the keyboard warriors on Twitter who insist the end is nigh. Just to cover all my bases, mad respect to you aliens for coming here, if you are here, and had a logistical meltdown on when you were going to reveal yourselves.
While we’re here, I guess I’ll toss in something music industry-adjacent to the alien/unexplained phenomenon discourse. If you’ve never heard the chilling story about Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan’s encounter with a shapeshifter, he talked about it several years ago on The Howard Stern Show. I don’t know. It’s a hell of an imaginative tale if it ain’t true.
You wanna see an Earth-based alien, though? Check out Victor Wembanyama. I can’t bring you here for aliens and not show you what the real thing looks like (this is meant as the highest compliment to Wemby, to be clear).
@wemby My POV : How I see the basketball court 👀🏀 . . . #wembanyama #victorwembanyama #wemby #basketball #ballin #pov #mypov #nba #ballislife🏀 #fyp #pourtoi ♬ son original – Victor Wembanyama
@wemby Summer is almost over 🧘🏽♂️ . . #wembanyama #victorwembanyama #wemby #pov #mypov #yogaflow #yogapose #splits #basketball #stretchingyogaa ♬ son original – Victor Wembanyama
