By Peter Howell
Sightings of unidentified flying objects have declined worldwide. This news, reported last week by The Guardian newspaper, should alarm and sadden anyone who has ever gazed in wonder at the sky above.
The Guardian quotes several academics as to why this is happening, with various theories advanced. But the author of the piece, Philip Jaekl, reports the shocking truth out there may be that “more people don’t care anymore” about UFOs.
“As we are accustomed to being inundated with wild claims churned out by politicians, media and advertisers, the next report of a UFO is no more believed than the long-range weather forecast,” he writes.
If UFOs really are going the way of the dodo bird, I blame the movies.
The rocket ships on sci-fi screens today are simply boring, whether they are piloted by earthlings or space aliens. These creations by model makers and special-effects wizards fail to excite the eye and mind, and hence the imagination that would lead us to see wonderful strange things in the sky.
Consider the interstellar vehicles of the bug-faced invaders in The Predator, currently in theatres. They resemble flying Xbox game controllers — hardly something to set the pulse racing, unless you’re a 12-year-old gamer.
The ungainly extraterrestrial craft in last year’s Alien: Covenant resembled a giant flying shrimp. It was built by a race called the Engineers, who certainly weren’t artists. The human spacecraft in the film weren’t any prettier, just flying boxes with protruding gizmos.
Don’t get me started on the spaceships of Solo: A Star Wars Story, this year’s underachieving instalment of the never-ending intergalactic soap opera. It’s heretical to say, I know, but I’m not a huge fan of Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon, which looks as if it was built out of Lego — and there actually is a Lego version of it. Any attachment I have to the Millennium Falcon is entirely nostalgic, not aesthetic.
Remember when humans and aliens used to take pride in the design of their spaceships?
