It’s safe to say the internet is obsessed with aliens and UFOs. Last year, a plan to storm Area 51 – because “they can’t stop all of us” – attracted millions of attendees on Facebook, even leading to a spike in searches for alien porn (OK?). While just last month, alien enthusiasts lost their shit over the Pentagon’s release of declassified UFO videos. Now, these fanatics have a new mystery on their hands: a supposed UFO crash in Brazil.
Thousands of residents in the municipality of Magé, just north of Rio de Janeiro, reported seeing glowing lights in the sky on Wednesday (May 20), with many uploading videos to Reddit and Twitter. The clips appear to show a flashing, circular orange light moving through the night sky. There’s also a video which supposedly shows the UFO on Earth, but which looks very suspiciously like a colander.
As reported by VICE, shortly after #MageUFO began trending on Twitter, the hashtag disappeared, leading enthusiasts to suspect foul play. Over on the r/UFOs Reddit page, posts about the Brazilian UFO also seemed to vanish.
According to Brazilian news site UOL, the local authorities and Air Force have no records about an unidentified flying object seen on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the conspiracy about a cover-up was gaining even more traction, newly fuelled by a Google Maps link showing a white UFO-shape covering Magé.
“What people are seeing in the imagery is a reflection that’s temporarily overloading the satellite’s sensor,” a Google spokesperson told VICE. “Essentially, the sun reflected off the surface of that building just at the right angle to briefly blind the satellite. This is a pretty common phenomenon known as saturation or blooming.”
Watch the videos below and decide for yourself: UFO, colander, or simply a drone?
