How crazy is it that in 2017, a former special agent and Pentagon employee leaked evidence that the US Military had on UFOs and the investigations into them, to very little fanfare? It barely made headlines, and was just churned through the 24 hour news cycle and forgotten, pending further investigation. Where did our fascinations with UFOs go? You can find alien trends in popular culture at various points, from War of the Worlds (the book, 1898) to War of the Worlds (the radio broadcast, 1938) to War of the Worlds (the movies, 1953, 2005). For anyone older than 25, UFOs were a major part of life, permeating our entertainment in nearly every genre, and even if you didn’t believe in little green men from far off galaxies barnstorming the skies and probing rednecks, you were guaranteed to at least know someone who did. Part of the reason this major story didn’t make many waves was because of the outrage overload from 2016-2020. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of news when twice a day you had a story coming out of the White House that was the most ludicrous thing you’d ever heard. But another part, especially in an age of people wary of fake news, is there really isn’t any evidence to say “Yes, those were aliens.” The Pentagon report doesn’t rule out the possibility, but stresses that there is no solid evidence for extraterrestrial technology. It really takes the wind out of the sails, but UFOs are, by very definition, “unidentified.” Another reason I’d posit, is that UFOs in pop culture tend to represent the unknown and the other. With the advent of the internet, we became a much more connected world. Many stopped seeing others from foreign nations and far-off lands as the “other” or “them;” strange, curious beings beyond reach or understanding. Especially if you lived in a small town, and never travelled abroad, you may never have met or conversed with someone from China, Ghana, Austraila, or Peru. It could seem like various cultures were far more different than they were similar. The internet changed all that. You could connect with anyone, and suddenly had access to local news from around the country, or the world, complete with updates and retractions, and the ability to cross check references. The 90s seemed to be the last hurrah of the weird, cryptid, UFO, crystal energy, astrology, ghost, possession, spontaneous combustion, type of fun conspiratorial fascination. Which is not to say conspiracy theories disappeared, just that they’re a lot more sad, disappointing, (relatively) grounded, and politically motivated. Image and video resolutions also became much clearer, making it harder to fake “evidence,” and you had more people collaborating digitally to find the truth and debunk hoaxes. It was much easier to believe there were more things in heaven and earth before we started documenting every little occurrence for all to see on the internet. But what a time to be alive! 1996 gave us both Independence Day, and Mars Attacks! In 1997, we got the adaptation of Carl Sagan’s Contact with Jodie Foster, alongside Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ unforgettable Men In Black. Not to mention David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s seminal run of the X-Files. It was a decade of change, the dawn of the global information age, those who grew up around that time experienced the transition from cassette tapes to CDs to mP3s in a whirlwind of advancement, with film evolving on a similar track. This is the environment in the year 1999 with the Y2K bug looming on the horizon, eve of a new millennium, that Godzilla 2000 sprang to life.

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