Watch The Skies
Not too long ago, The Sun had a front-page bit on a UFO being seen above Cardiff, before being chased by a Police helicopter across the Bristol Channel and disappearing.
I was irrationally excited about this. The reason I liked the X-Files so much, and by extension the reason I’ve been inflicting a couple of hundred episodes’ worth of meandering commentary on your good selves about it over the past few months, is due to a fascination with UFOs (and ghosts, and lake monsters, and other paranormal weirdness) I had when I was a kid. So a local sighting is pretty cool, and not just for making pithy Torchwood gags.
The BBC news, of course, has to go and piss on everyone’s chips by soberly reporting that, yes, a flying object was spotted that wasn’t immediately identified by the crew of the helicopter, but that there’s plenty of boring regular stuff up there that a crew wouldn’t necessarily be able to identify straight off the bat and anyway, the rules say they’re not allowed to go haring off over the River Severn on a jolly, so they didn’t. At least the Beeb reported it. The other news sources didn’t bother, which just tells me they’re All In It Together, Suppressing The Truth.
It’s not the first time UFOs have been seen in my neck of the woods, actually. Back before the First World War, when things were gearing up for conflict and the populace were aware of the Germans building huge balloon thingies, and were somewhat concerned about the possibility of using them to drop stuff on British cities (a fear that, as history tells us, wasn’t what you could call unfounded), many reports were recorded of zeppelins being sighted around the country.
Here’s a question: do humans really see odd shit in the sky, or is there just a widespread psychological fault that makes us think we see odd shit in the sky? Whatever the origins of the odd shit, back at the turn of the last century the little green men of popular culture hadn’t quite taken hold yet, so the oddness was attributed, as is the cultural habit of the British, to the Germans.
I’ve got a ton of books on the supernatural. Whenever I go on holiday, I always pick up a couple of tourist targeted volumes. You know the kind. Local, small-press stuff, with questionable proof-reading values, glossy paper, stuffed into spinner rack in the Visitor’s Centre with titles like “The Ghosts of Alberta” in a spooky wobbly font. I’ve also got a load of large-page hardback titles, a format not unlike the Beano and Dandy annuals, picked up on the cheap from remainder book stores. In fact, if I recall correctly, Brother Paul has a stack, too, all filled with the kind of deadly serious matter-of-fact articles about abductions and devil dogs that are terrifying when you’re twelve. I find them terrifying now, but then I’m a soft-touch scaredy cat who was reduced to quivering jelly by “An American Haunting”, so I may not be the most objective commentator.
A mention of your home town in books like this is going to stick with you. As part of an overview of the Mystery Zeppelin phenomena, one of the articles told the story of a man who saw one of these craft land on Caerffili Mountain, and got close enough to hear the occupants speak in a foreign language he didn’t recognise before scurrying back to the balloon and heading off over Cardiff. Classic UFO encounter.
The reason I bring this up, is that last week The Sun runs another UFO story, a full front-pager this time, on UFOs being sighted over a military base. This made me think two things: firstly, that’s a few slow news weeks we’ve been getting. Secondly, that’s nicely timed, considering there’s a new X-Files movie coming out in a few weeks’ time.
The last thought chilled me. Really. Because The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who in turn owns Fox- who produce the X-Files.
I’m not saying the aliens are here and are in league with News Corp (or am I?), but it’s no bloody coincidence that this stuff is getting on their front page- is getting a prominent, dedicated section of The Sun’s website, in fact (no link to The Scum from here, though, oh no. No clicky for Rupert)- on the run-up to the new movie. That kind of blatant manipulation really is spooky.
on July 1st, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I feel a bit dumb for not making the connection between The Sun’s owners and 20th Century Fox! Thanks for pointing it out.
Actually, I saw the trailer for the new X-Files movie last night, when I went to see Wanted (Big, dumb, fun action movie, if a bit morally suspect!), looks very interesting indeed. Billy Connolly with bleeding eyes and something buried under ice, like in The Thing.
on July 1st, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Even before the current X-Fest I’m engaged in, I was well looking forward to the new movie (yes, even with the puzzling addition of Billy Connolly). Put it down to the aforementioned misspent youth. I’ve got Wanted on the to-see list, and I’m not that bugged about the suspect morality. Millar pretty much said he wanted to write the most fucked-up thing he could think of, and by all accounts he succeeded.
on July 1st, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I wanted to share for the record how much, as an American, I enjoy the “pissing on chips” expression. I’m going to make an effort to use it at least once a day.
on July 2nd, 2008 at 10:26 am
And the genius thing about it is that the phrase still makes sense, despite a slight change in the transatlantic meaning of the word “chips”.
on July 2nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Well, the thing about UFOs is that that first word, “unidentified,” applies to absolutely everything one doesn’t have knowledge of. To primitive societies, the sun was unidentified (and certainly not as a star), which is why there are so many sungods; to many people who don’t have much more than a basic knowledge of astronomy, Mars and Venus are unidentified objects in the sky. Reminds me of an old joke I learned when I was a kid:
“Starlight, star bright,
First star I see tonight;
Wish I may, wish I might–
Ah, shucks, it’s just a satellite.”