Zounds, Xenomorphs!
This week finds your antipodean agony aunt pondering what kind of blase, seen-it-all-before world can be faced with a possible First Contact between Homo sapiens and honest-to-goodness Extra-Terrestrial lifeforms and collectively say "Aliens? That's nice…is GLEE on yet?"
I mean, sure, it turned out that the big-flashy-blue-sky-whirly was probably a Russian missile test gone wrong (indeed very wrong, as the last time I checked, Vladivostok was not in Norway) but still, apparently we have no time for meeting exotic ambassadors from beyond the bounds of our world that doesn't involve swearing at cab drivers in THE AMAZING RACE.
WTF people? Even if the Russian Missile Test theory turns out to be true and isn't just what the Grays want us to think :adjusts tinfoil hat: this was a majorly exciting couple of days, and yet the only people running around screaming "First Contact! First Contact!" were the sad little virgins in homemade Starfleet uniforms.
C'mon folks—potentially the most important moment in Human History here! We finally could be on the brink of finding out we're not alone in the Universe, and there's nary a peep out of anyone. It's not like a possible alien encounter witnessed by thousands of people who aren't inbred farmhands and who are in a major capital city happens every day! Well… except in England, which according to DOCTOR WHO is invaded by conquest-minded alien monsters as regularly as the post arrives.
"WE-ARE-INVADING-EARTH-AGAIN? MUST-BE-TUESDAY"
-Not only did most news networks relegate the story to the After the Weather timeslot traditionally reserved for The Weeeeird-Assed News Stories, but no governments did anything, either.
No mass panic in the streets. No sinister black-ops agents in Biohazard suits following trails of M & M's. No Leonard Nimoys and/or Zach Quintos being sent to Oslo to do the whole "Live Long and Prosper" greeting with potential ETs. Nope, the only loud, electric-blue coloured shiny thing that the media was interested in reporting about as a possible threat to our way of life was Adam Lambert snogging his guitarist on the AMAs.
I blame this disappointing lack of exhilaration/pants-wetting pure terror on today's over-abundance of computer-generated special effects. Who cares about some blue whirly lights in the sky over Norway* when you've seen a three-hundred foot tall robot tea-bagging the Golden Gate Bridge, or watched James Earl Jones light-sabre battling a green muppet in a spaceship the size of George Lucas' ego? We need to rediscover our sense of awe as a species, so that the next time a multi-coloured star-spectacle appears in front of a crowded cityscape, people respond with "Great Caesar's Pickled Catfish, it's a motherfucking UFO!" rather than "Eh, the greenscreen's better on STARGATE."
* The lack of reaction also suggests a different, more sinister possibility, given that there's only ever been one other infamous encounter between alien life-forms and Norwegians… I suggest we start watching people from Flekefjord, Oslo and Skudeneshavn very, very closely…especially if they have sled dogs…
