For our next trick we bring you—UFOs

It was a circular patch of flattened grass where nothing grew I was told We were in a Meghalayan village called Mawsinram and the patch was about 20 meters wide It must have been a small flying saucer then I said to the manldquoWe are grateful the aliens picked Mawsinram no matter how big their saucer wasrdquo the man said ldquoTourists flock here now to see the grass patch and they all buy at least a bottle of my plum brandyrdquoUFOs have been back in the news since last year when the US Department of Defense officially released three unclassified videos purportedly tracking flying things that could not be identified or explainedWe used to call them UFOs back in the day and believed they contained multilegged green aliens who abducted people to perform weird experiments on them mess with their minds and in certain cases even have sex with them They said the USA had brought down some UFOs and was holding some captured aliens in a topsecret installation that everyone knew about called Area 51Because calling them UFOs made them easy to dismiss it was suggested they be called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena UAP and that name has stuck One writer suggested that they could be called Completely Ridiculous Alien Piffle CRAP I kinda still like UFOMy questions are simple and silly as they always are mdash Why do so many UFOs seem to prefer the USA Are the aliens watching too much Netflix How about a few of them unidentified flying cigars fly our way here to the land of the holy cowWhy do they have so many different shapes ranging from saucers to vertical cigar shapes Are we being simultaneously studied by several species of aliensIn fact why donrsquot they just take over the planet and rule us exactly as in the movie Independence Day We could let them have Trump Bill Gates Boris Johnson Putin Xi Jinping and Bolsonaro to perform their experiments onWhy are UFO sightings always in poor and deceptive lighting conditions when things are half perceived and half imaginedWhy donrsquot they ever land for say refuelling or taking a closer look at the Taj MahalIrsquod like to answer those questions now Itrsquos not true that UFOs prefer the US though the first sighting ever reported was near Mt Rainier Washington Kenneth Arnold saw nine crescentshaped flying objects whose motion he described as similar to a saucer skimming over water That pretty phrase struck and lsquoflying saucersrsquo were born An unsurprising number of people started seeing other flying saucers right awayUFOs have been sighted in 24 countries including Belarus However it remains true that the USA where some people believe that Democrats are pizzaeating satanworshippers who run a global pedophile ring has the highest reported number of UFO sightings and abductionsWhy so many shapes UAPs are visible because they reflect light whether from the sun the moon or some other source A flat flying object could look like a cigar when viewed verticallyAre they hostile Might they take us over Historically human beings have perceived a dire threat from anything that could not be explained satisfactorily using scientific logical terms I call your attention to the earliest known UAP seen near Rome which resembled jagged blue white streaks reaching down from the sky during thunderstorms No one knew what on earth they were until someone suggested that the god Zeus sitting on Mt Olympus was pissed off with Romans and throwing lightning bolts at themThe chances that UAPs contain aliens are very slim The chances that UAP sightings are probably something odd made even odder by poor lighting and overactive imaginations are very high As I write this there are over 6000 satellites zipping around our planet like a swarm of flies some 3000 or so weather balloons released daily by meteorologists and about 7 million drones in different shapes sizes and speedsCome night and they are joined by trillions of stars Itrsquos a wonder we donrsquot see many many more UFOs far more frequentlyIn brief I would strongly recommend that a highlevel task force of topnotch scientists study UAPs seriously and get to the bottom of things with all dispatch but I also wouldnrsquot spend sleepless nights worrying about alien takeoversOf concern though is the UFO reportedly sighted over the Prime Ministerrsquos house on Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi on June 7 2018 and immediately reported by the Special Protection Group personnel The UFO was blatantly trespassing within the 2km nofly zone around the PMrsquos houseItrsquos a true blessing that he will soon move to a new 15 acre alienproof residential complex costing Rs 13450 croreHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper