The strings attached

A new wave of unidentified flying object sightings has begun and apparently, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

After US military shot down four flying objects last week (one of which was the Chinese spy balloon), the provenance of the three others has been more difficult to pin down with the FBI chiefs refusing to rule out extraterrestrial activity. Momentous times.

Closer to home and The British UFO Research Association told the Guardian that there had been an increase in people getting in touch with sightings. Are more people simply craning their hopeful necks skywards? Or are we witnessing the vanguard of an invasion of little green men?

Personally, whilst I’m hoping for the latter, I’m resigning myself to the fact that the vast majority of these ‘sighting’ are simply the by-product of half-cut headers watching the night sky on their way home from the pub when they should be concentrating on their gravy chips. You know the kind: There’s wiser eating grass.

However according to the so-called experts (ufologists, if you don’t mind), the world should brace itself for an exponential increase in sightings in the coming weeks.

Joe McGonagle, one of the UK’s foremost amateur UFO researchers, summed it up succinctly and to the point when he suggested that press coverage caused more people to look out for sightings and the process repeated in a cycle. “And suddenly you’ve got an alien invasion,” he said.

However, the whole debacle was best summed up this week by social media luminaries, ‘Straight Outta Strabane’, when they relayed the story of a Donemana man caught up in the frenzy. It went thusly…

“Donemana man followed a ‘Chinese spy balloon’ for two hours today, only to realise it was bird sh!te on his windscreen.”

On with the programming!

First up, and in no particular order, is ‘Carnival Row’ season two is now showing on Amazon Prime…

A growing population of mythological immigrant creatures struggles to coexist with humans after the creatures’ exotic homelands are invaded by the empires of man. The creatures are forbidden to live, love or fly with freedom, but hope lives in darkness.

And lastly, love him or hate him, ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ is back for another series on Amazon Prime…

Follow Jeremy Clarkson as he attempts to run a farm in the countryside. With no previous farming experience, Jeremy is gloriously out of his element.