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Tea’s Weird Week: I’m Not Saying it was Aliens, but…
The 2020s have just been the wildest. A pandemic, riots, an attempted Q d’état insurrection, mystery monoliths, and now a UFO invasion.
UFOs have been a topic of interest of mine since I was a teen. X-Files was big at the time, and that inspired me to read whatever I could find on real UFO cases, though I don’t consider myself an expert on the field. I did see a UFO while I was out on a Bigfoot expedition (you can read about that experience in my book Monster Hunters).
Here’s what happened over the last couple weeks.
February 4: After bobbing along across the country, a Chinese spy balloon is shot down off the coast of South Carolina (another was spotted over Colombia and Costa Rica).
February 10: A UFO is shot down off the coast of Alaska. The fighter pilots who shot it down say the object “interfered with their sensors,” and that it had “no identifiable propulsion system.” Also interesting– the pilots who encountered it “reported back very conflicting accounts.” This is all being reported by multiple mainstream news outlets, by the way, not InfoWars or Joe Schmoe’s UFO Podcast. They describe the UFO as being the size of “a car.”
The Pentagon noted that the UFO “does not resemble in any way the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina earlier this week.” [Politico]
February 11: US and Canadian jets shoot down a UFO over the Yukon. This one is described as a “cylindrical object.”
February 12: A third UFO is shot down over Lake Huron, after flying over Montana, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It was reported to be “an octagonal structure with strings hanging off but no discernable payload.” [ABC] All three UFOs are described as being “unmanned.”
What the hell is going on here? So far, officials haven’t given additional information as they are still collecting and examining the wreckage. Really, I think there’s just a couple possibilities:
1. )
2.) UFOs are, as my friend Mark Gubin posits, time traveling tourists from the future, here to observe one of the most terrible and dumb chapters of history.
3.) They are spy surveillance drones from China, North Korea, or Russia. That’s the most realistic theory, though I don’t put a lot of stock into the word “realistic” anymore.
I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords. I’m eager to see developments on this story. Will there be more? Will we get answers? Tune in and keep your eyes to the sky!
UPDATE: From today’s (Feb. 13) White House press conference:
“I just want to make sure we address this from the White House. I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no, again, no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns,” Jean-Pierre told reporters as she opened the White House press briefing. “Wanted to make sure that the American people knew that, all of you knew that, and it is important for us to say that from here.” [CBS]
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? 😉
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Brady Street Pharmacy: Stories and Sketches (2021, VA Press)
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Tea’s Weird Week: I can’t even write about these dang scooters without it getting paranormal
I put it forth to Facebook to ask what I should write about in the column this week, and the subject of scooter chaos came up. They do seem to be everywhere and opinions are mixed. Some are saying they’re just stupid fun while others are quoting J. Jonah Jameson and shouting that they’re “a goddamn menace!” After a failed trial attempt last year, the Bird scooters returned and Lime and Spin appeared too, filling the sidewalks with 1,050 scooters.
Image via Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/8ql8kd/the_birds_2018/
My own opinion is a little mixed. I’m all for public transportation options. And they do look fun– just last night I was riding the bus and we passed by a group of about a dozen teenagers riding scooters together in the bike lane, and it looked like they were having a blast, laughing and talking. It reminded me of my youth, when me and a group of friends would ride skateboards or bikes or just walk around, often with no particular destination in mind.
But I’ve also seen some reckless scooter driving (Urban Milwaukee reports over 100 complaints of scooter violations, including collisions with pedestrians, were reported within a couple weeks and Marquette and UWM recently banned them from campus). I think a couple of the problems here is that the training and test ride on these things is live and in public. You just jump on and learn how to ride it while you’re barreling down the sidewalk or street. You learn to drive a car in an empty parking lot, you learn to drive a scooter on Water St. and Wisconsin Ave. With a max speed of 15mph, the scooters are too fast for a sidewalk and too slow for a street…or at least too slow for I-94.
On Monday three were fined for riding Lime scooters on I-94 near the Marquette interchange.
CBS 58 reports: “The scooter riders told deputies they were visiting from Texas and were using their GPS to navigate to the Harley Davidson Museum on the scooters.”
But what if there was a way people could have their scooters without running over our toes? [hippie voice] What if we could, like, ride our Lime scooters through the cosmos, man? Wouldn’t that be faaaar out?
Coincidentally (or was it?) my friends at the Singular Fortean Society issued a report on Wednesday of a man they interviewed from Springfield, Illinois, who said he had an encounter with a “humanoid flying a scooter with no wheels” in the night sky as he walked home in the woods on some railroad tracks.
The witness, Mike, told Singular Fortean Society (you can read the whole report HERE) described what he saw in the night sky:
“It looked like a person, like a big person, on a scooter; I swear I could almost see the handlebars on the thing. That’s what my recollection was. A scooter, with no wheels, with some big guy, probably six foot, 250 pounds or something like that. It looked like a little Honda scooter, and it looked like it had a little light on one side of it. I remember seeing something shining, like on the front of it—kind of like a headlight,” recounted Mike.
I know what you’re thinking. This is amazing and we need to capture this ET tech, reverse engineer it, and franchise it ASAP to cash in on the scooter craze. But what should we named the company? Here’s the poll:
Winning name will be announced in next week’s column!
#ClownWatch2019: Continuing our reporting of strange clown sightings– outbreak in New England!
07/21/2019, 2:46 pm: Brookline, Massachusetts police blotter report of “a topless woman wearing clown makeup and an apron, standing in front of a building.” [via brookline.wickedlocal.com]
08/19/2019: USA Today reports that a New Jersey woman witnessed a plush doll of Pennywise (from It) fall into her yard. The doll had letters and numbers written on the forehead, which, according to the witness, “looked culty.” The police were called, the doll burned, and the frightened woman slept with a knife for protection.
Looks like a kid with a good throwing arm is patting themselves on the back for a prank well done. [via USA Today]
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My book Apocalypse Any Day Now is available here: http://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/ApocalypseAnyDayNow
Twitter: @TeaKrulos Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheTeaKrulos
Please don’t tweet and drive scooters.
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