Search A Light In The Darkness

Wednesday 16 September 2009

The truth is out there: Rush to solve Google's new UFO puzzle

Google left users puzzled again today by displaying another picture of a UFO on its UK home page. This time the doodle above the search engine showed a flying saucer hovering over crop circles. The word ‘Google’ is spelt out in several crop circles, with what appears to be a tractor completing the letter ‘L’.

The internet giant has once again broken with the tradition of only marking historic events with a doodle. But after Google used Twitter last week to display its clues for the UFO it hosted, amateur net detectives had an easier job trying to solve today’s mystery. On their Twitter account Google posted on its account the map reference 51.327629, 0.5616088, which eagle-eyed sci-fi fans have identified as the centre of the small town of Horsell in Surrey.

This was the spot where HG Wells set the first UFO landing in his novel The War of the Worlds.

The most prominent explanation on the web is that Google is trailing an online ‘happening’ that will coincide with the 143rd anniversary of Wells’s birth next week. Last week it sent out a Twitter message in a numerical code which was: 1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19. The Tech Crunch website deciphered the message by using the method 1 is A and 2 is B, etc.

Once you have been through the entire message it reads: 'All you o are belong to us.' The message has become an internet meme - a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly around the world via the internet, as users try to work out what it means. It is reminiscent of a famous internet phenomenon from the early 2000s which declared: ‘All your base are belong to us’.

The phrase - poorly translated - was taken from the opening scene of a 1991 version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing. The spread of a Flash animation that depicted the slogan spread from person to person after appearing on message forums.

It is still unclear quite why Google chose to put up the spaceship and the meme today, with speculation it might be linked to new alien film District 9. (Daily Mail)