Long long ago, i had read an article in a sunday supplement of a leading english daily about an impending ufo sighting; a specific day in the coming week with time, to be precise.It was in the pre-liberalisation days, let me assure you people in those days took the newspaper as the gospel.Needless to say, the said article and its astonishing exploits about this encounter of a third kind proclamation was enough to create a flutter in the vast readership.The anxiety laden week started with frantic enquiries and possibly mass procurement of over the counter night sky watching nick-knacks.At last this once-in-a-life-time moment of truth was upon us.i distinctly remember bending twice over the balcony grills, over the terrace parapet and scurrying down to the enclosed playground nearby to get at least a fleeting glimpse of the visitors from far.The night passed,no sighting, not a flicker, absolutely no dancing of lights as promised.A depressing and did-i-miss-it? syndrome ridden week later, it appeared in a corner article as an answer.The newpaper had a good laugh at the cost of its readers.i was a miniscule speck they needn't have bothered laughing at.The date! they poetically pointed out.You could have guessed it from the obvious choice of date it was published.First of April!No offence but just thought it would be a good occasion to whip up a solid laughing spree in case the idea caught on.It did.
Later i found myself shaking my head at the foolishness of believing such an incredible idea of visiting spaceships,my juvenile age bracket at that point of time notwithstanding.But now for the last few years, i am equally appalled at the serious tone with which the channel, 'discovery' and its clones, air the alien propaganda. They have these fat farmers from Australia or Virginia who rant on camera as to how they lost their favorite cow to the aliens with huge sucking machines. Why only cows? Why not rabbits? The aliens have a very limited choice it seems.i doubt there was ever a missing persons complaint filed for a fat farmer sucked up by the aliens. For all the crazy stories you may have heard about dancing lights in the sky and thin green men, no hard evidence is present to sustantiate the claims.'i saw them there' is the usual one liner you would hear from a retired army officer or some bored housewife making their time to time appearance on television;read discovery,our own aaj tak ect ect. While i have no doubt the former channel is a respected one with a huge fan following the world over and the latter is a desi top of the heap hindi news channel, they simply cannot peddle these insane stories in the name of enmassing viewership.Like a lot of things unproven, undetected inspite of the latest advances in science, things like the ufo phenomenon too continue to take popular imagination by storm in the face of an all believing, all lapping, ignorant, rumour happy population.A historical reference too is found in the engravings it seems. Yet no body ever remotely claims to have made any direct contact or even reported a conflict with these so called visitors from far.Only stories are told by a stray attention monger and filed by unscrupulous agencies.i hear a collective laughter whenever these episodes are aired or printed, the joke is again on us,me.