We have previously covered the 'mystery' surrounding the so-called 'Chad UFO Drone' sightings, and the associated CARET document with its alleged alien glyphs, which have received a fair amount of air time courtesy of journalist Linda Moulton Howe and various 'paranormal radio' shows. Well, it may now finally be solved - and as we thought, it looks like a viral marketing scheme. Computer hardware company Alienware (a subsidiary of Dell) has been running a competition around the release of two new laptop models, where entrants must decode the same 'alien glyphs' as found in the CARET document. The competition page and hint pages also make use of the same vector illustrations found in the document. Yesterday's press conference to unveil the new laptops also made use of the glyphs (which spell out 'Alienware') - the 'logo' is also apparently inscribed on the computers themselves.
However, the 'true believers' out there are still wary of seeing this as the final nail in the 'Drone' case - and they have received some support from Alienware themselves.A query by a member of the Open Minds Forum to Alienware, about their use of the glyphs, received this response from their PR Director: Thank you for your email. Its great to hear that our promotion has reach out to you and your Forum group regarding the CARET document. Alienware did NOT create the information regarding this phenomena or the CARAT linguistics. This is NOT an intellectual property of Alienware. The information has anonymously spread throughout the web for some time. We have taken the CARAT linguistics and have applied this as a marketing tool to draw attention to our promotion.
This has led some to believe that Alienware have just 'hijacked' the CARET meme for their own benefit. There may be some grounds to support this, in that the Alienware 'alphabet', when applied to the CARET documents for decoding, only turns up gibberish (on the flipside, the viral marketers may have been wary of someone cracking the alphabet previous to now, giving a reason for the gibberish).
However, I find it very hard to believe that a company like Dell/Alienware would use glyphs and illustrations that are floating around the Internet without any knowledge of the true copyright owner...otherwise they could be looking at a very nasty lawsuit down the track. Some have suggested that they could get away with this due to grey areas in font copyright law, but this would not extend to the illustrations used.
Additionally, in the message from the PR director CARET is spelled correctly once, and then 'CARAT' is substituted afterwards. It is worth noting that Carat is the name of a major advertising and communications company, which has as a subsidiary a digital and viral marketing wing named Carat Fusion.
If it was a viral marketing scheme, it didn't seem to work out too impressively - the glyph decoding competition is already finished, and most of ufology was none the wiser. The CARET meme didn't seem to spread outside of the 'true believer' section of ufology (most serious researchers simply laughed at the whole thing), so the audience was very limited. And those 'true believers' who were aware of it - and thought it was evidence for alien contact - are probably not impressed at all with Alienware for tricking them (apart from those who continue to believe that Alienware have just hijacked the meme).
Perhaps there might be more to come - Alienware computers are aimed at the high-performance gaming market, so there may be a tie-in with an upcoming game which is yet to be revealed. However, at this point - unless an original creator (or aliens) comes out and sues Alienware for breach of copyright - it seems safe to put this one to bed.
At least it made for good art - especially the derivative music video "Strange Craft", by Drone (CGI work by Saladfingers).
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Alienware Behind Dragonfly 'Drone', UFOs and Crop Circles?
CBS Reports with Walter Cronkite ; UFO Friend. Foe or Fantas
CBS Reports with Walter Cronkite ; UFO Friend. Foe or Fantasy,May 10, 1966.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
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Saturday, 13 June 2009
Kansas City UFO Sightings on the Rise June 12, 2009
ANSAS CITY, MO. - Is there life in outer space? And if so, when E.T. phones home is he dialing an 816 number?
A local group that investigates UFO close encounters said it's getting more reports of UFOs in our area and more interest in the organization.
When you see reports about UFOs on the internet, it's hard to separate fact from fiction. But, that's exactly what a group of UFO investigators in Kansas City is working to do.
On May 31, witnesses saw two unidentified objects near the UMKC campus. A man reported it to MUFON, Mutual UFO Network, and gave investigators a drawing of what he saw.
"He grew up on military bases and couldn't identify it at all," said Margie Kay, Director of KC MUFON.
Kay said sightings like the one at UMKC are on the rise since the start of the year. They used to get one or two sightings a month. Now, it's one or two a day.
"It's keeping us all too busy. Yes. At one point a couple of months ago I received 11 reports on the same day," said Kay.
Kay is also noticing a lot more chatter on websites. One message board used to get about 12 posts a month a couple of years ago, in January 2009, it received 129 messages.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Monday, 8 June 2009
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Jellyfish shaped crop circle at Oxfordshire, United Kingdom abc news
Couple spots a giant, startling 'jellyfish' on their land.
A 600ft jellyfish pattern has appeared in a barley field in Kingstone Coombes, Oxfordshire, in what is one of the most intriguing crop circles ever seen in Britain.http://www.avimoas.com/ufo-news-and-videos/131-jellyfish-crop-circle-oxfordshire-england.html
