Lions and Tigers and... Aliens? Oh My!
By Sofia Lombard, Co Editor in Chief
"There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
Image courtesy of DigitalSpy.com
In the summer of 2019, thousands congregated on Facebook and took part in the controversial “storm Area 51” meme. What started as a joke eventually turned dangerous, as 428,000 people took interest in the online prank and threatened to raid the heavily guarded U.S military facility, proclaiming, “let’s see them aliens.” Yet, with increasing reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs, for short), suspicions of extraterrestrial life, and the rise of government secrecy, the alien conspiracy theories began to look less like theories.
It all began on July 7, 1947, when two men spotted “a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tin foil, and rather tough paper” while driving near the city of Roswell, New Mexico. The strange sighting of this wreckage appeared out of place, baffling the public and making newspaper headlines within days of its finding.
Image courtesy of History.Com
Image (left) courtesy of Smithsonian Magazine
The rare-sighting left the public in a conspiracy fervor, as many strongly believed that the debris originated from a damaged flying saucer. This widespread sentiment pointed to only one explanation: aliens must be near. However, the government was quick to shut down any outlandish beliefs. They justified the mysterious sighting by claiming it was merely a weather balloon that had crashed, so there was nothing to be suspicious of. Or was there? The time of the Roswell incident was in the midst of the outbreak of the Cold War, and to be clear, truth-telling was not necessarily on the government's agenda. While the weather balloon account may have been factual, many remained skeptical of this strange incident and the government's response. Secrets were in the air, lies were being told, and the truth was yet to be discovered.
The Roswell Incident of 1947 led to UFO enthusiasts and alien fanatics popping up across the country. Many sought closure to the peculiar case and pursued any evidence that could justify the existence of aliens. And they got just that.
In 1989, an engineer and physicist supposedly working at a government base near Area 51 came forth with his knowledge of extraterrestrial life and UFOs. The man, Robert Lazar, claimed he was hired to develop advanced proposition engines at base S4, just south of Area 51. Yet, when he was recruited, what he saw was beyond just the testing of ordinary military spacecraft. Lazar confirmed that he encountered nine flying discs -- some intact and others broken -- that were being analyzed by the scientists at S4. Lazar’s claims were also different compared to other conspiracists at the time. First, he debunked conventional pop-culture portrayal of UFOs, claiming that the crafts actually flew belly up and contained 3 rotating cylinders for navigational purposes. Lazar was also honest with the public, admitting that he did not have inside access to all the parts of the spacecraft, only the ones he was working on.
But, so what? Couldn’t a guy just be making all of this up for entertainment and attention? Yes, but it gets weirder. Lazar’s scientific claims, in part, were actually factual. He claimed that the UFOs utilized an antimatter reactor, something that is impossible for humans to have created. He also stated that the spacecraft had a unique anti-gravitational repulsion system powered through Moscovium, a synthetic element. While it is impossible for humans to manipulate gravity, Russian scientists later created the element Moscovium in 2004. Lazar somehow predicted the element’s existence with knowledge that could have only been known from working on the ships. Odd, right?
Image courtesy of Medium.com
Image courtesy of KRQE.com
Pictured on the left is Robert Lazar mapping out the spacecraft technology, and pictured on the right is Robert Lazar’s original drawing of the spacecrafts he claimed to see
Researchers left and right yearned to uncover the truth about Aliens and UFOs. With the Roswell Incident of 1947 and Lazar’s eyewitness claims in 1989, more and more people joined the conspiracy train. However, over time these cases became cold and outdated, merely archives in online databases. New evidence of extraterrestrial life ultimately led to dead ends, and the link between these cases and the physical proof of aliens became weaker and weaker.
Then in 2012, a series of slides were found in the belongings of an elderly woman who had recently passed away. The collection seemed normal at first, with vintage photographs of presidents, celebrities, and European towns that had been colorized with a technology called Kodachrome. Strangely, under the photographs were two separately wrapped slides, almost identical in size. They pictured a withered small body with a large skull, deep eye sockets, and shriveled skin, sitting in a glass case. Researchers had landed upon the most promising UFO lead in years: a photograph of what appeared to be an alien.
Image courtesy of Pinterest.com
Photo above shows the original kodachrome slide found in the collection, unblurred, of what appears to be an alien-like figure
The true depiction of the photograph remains a mystery today. Some speculate that the alien-like body is that of a mummified Egyptian boy, but the truth shall never be known. Whether you believe in the existence of aliens or not, that's up for you to decide. But just remember, when you gaze up at the night sky or peek outside your window at night, there may be someone, or something, looking right back at you...