In a move that has sent the tin-foil hat industry into overdrive, the FBI has declassified four videos of unidentified aerial phenomena, and rumour has it that Her Majesty’s Ministry of Defence is about to do the same with a raft of domestic sightings. Oh, jolly good. Finally, the government has decided to share the one thing we actually wanted to know: what the hell is buzzing our skies.
The videos, grainy as a hangover, show what appear to be small, white, oval objects zipping about with the kind of effortless grace that puts our Ryanair fleet to shame. They dart, they hover, they vanish. The sort of manoeuvres that would make a Top Gun pilot weep into his aviators. The FBI, typically busy with more terrestrial concerns like bank robberies and the occasional Watergate, has apparently had these in a drawer marked 'Don't Open Till Doomsday' for years.
Now, I’m no expert. I’m a man who gets his news from the bottom of a gin glass and the top of a gossip column. But I’ve seen enough Doctor Who to know that when the government starts releasing UFO footage, it’s either because they’ve run out of C-list celebrity scandals to distract us, or because the aliens have finally asked for a meeting with the Queen. Either way, I’m booking my seat on the mothership.
The British MoD, never one to miss a chance to be a decade late and a pound short, is rumoured to be compiling its own dossier of domestic sightings. I can only imagine these will feature reports from Norfolk farmers about crop circles and the odd encounter with a ‘silvery being’ that politely asked for directions to the nearest Wetherspoons. The British public, after all, is far too polite to abduct an alien. We’d probably offer it a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit before asking, “So, where are you from? No, really, where are you from?”
But let’s be serious for a moment. (I know, I hate it too.) The release of these videos is a monumental event. It confirms what we’ve always suspected: that there are things in the sky that are not ours, that are not birds, and that are certainly not weather balloons. Unless weather balloons have started performing barrel rolls at 30,000 feet. Which they haven’t. I checked.
The implications are staggering. If we have proof of extraterrestrial visitors, then we must ask: what do they want? Are they here to study us? To conquer us? Or, as I suspect, simply to enjoy the show that is humanity’s slow descent into madness? Perhaps they’re on a galactic gap year, taking selfies with our monuments and leaving behind little souvenirs in the form of mathematical equations etched into cornfields.
And then there’s the response from the U.S. government. The Pentagon, in its infinite wisdom, has set up a task force to investigate these sightings. Because, you know, nothing says “we take this seriously” like a bureaucratic committee with a bland acronym. I suggest we call it the Unexplained Aerial Phenomena Taskforce. UAPT. Catchy, isn’t it? Rolls off the tongue like a lead balloon.
Meanwhile, the British government will likely form a special committee that meets once a year in a damp room in Whitehall, where they’ll drink tea and agree that the footage is “inconclusive” before moving on to discuss the important matter of badger culling. This is the same country that once classified the fact that the sky is blue as ‘Restricted’. I swear to God.
In conclusion, the truth is out there, but it’s being drip-fed to us like a slow poison. The FBI releases videos. The MoD follows suit. And we, the great unwashed, are left to piece together the puzzle. Are we alone in the universe? Probably not. But we are definitely alone in trying to get a straight answer out of our governments.
For now, I’ll be watching the skies with a bottle of Gordon’s and a telescope. If you see a light in the sky, wave. It might just be a neighbour with a drone. Or it might be the beginning of the end. Either way, it’s a better show than the House of Commons.
