Aliens: So Whatchoo Want?

 I was watching Signs this morning and I noticed that during the alien invasion that takes place in the second half of the film, a television expert testifies about how during the 70's, UFOs and crop circles were water cooler talk for a long period of time. 

 I know this as truth as my dad's paperback collection verified it to a degree:

I loved the blurry photos contained in these books, with "proof" of flying saucers.  Plate-like objects caught in black and white frozen moments, raising eyebrows of folks from the late 50's to the late 70s.  The Loch Ness squads built numbers across the world, demanding answers.  On television, Leonard Nimoy narrated the creepy-ass In Search Of:, making me realize that not only did Sasquatch and vampires prowl the Earth, UFOs were patrolling the skies, planning who-knows-what?

In the 90's Science Fiction and conspiracy shows (The X-Files, Alien Autopsy) were bee-boppin' and scattin' across screens, screaming the words "Area 51" into our faces as movies like Fire in the Sky, Contact, and Men In Black sold tickets and a few chills in the theatres.  Side note:  It wasn't until I read John Keel's Mothman Prophecies that the "Men In Black" concept really got under my skin. 

It's worth a read, kids.  As good as the underrated Mothman movie is, it really works more as a fictional conceptualization of what happened in Virginia in the late 60's as depicted in the book.  Disappointingly, the movie Men in Black makes them seem like some sort of interstellar protection unit, where the real life encounters were allegedly far more sinister.  But I'm digressing again.

Tom Hanks' character in Apollo 13 is touring some American riff-raff through NASA and throwin' out quips like "Someday a computer may be able to fit in a single room".  Now we're walking around with devices in our pockets that have the circuitry power hundreds of times over the machinery that powered the space missions.  Only now they're tik-tokking and snap-chatting people engaging in stupid behavior, broadcasting sporting events, and storing our music.  Thanks to the fact that these things have top flight cameras on them, interstellar sky occurrences are captured almost constantly, and there aren't enough dudes in suits to send to doorsteps in order to quiet the witnesses.

Now the government is admitting that all that hub-bub over the decades that they shushed and poo-poo'd is not only real, but everywhere.  Take a click and a read:

So where do we go from here?  Now that it's pretty much confirmed, the Gubmint is acting like it ain't no thing, and if it were they wouldn't have time for it.  The conspiracy end is pretty much wiped clean and those interested are free to dig.  

Somehow, it just doesn't feel the same does it?