Dramatic footage of a fake UFO hovering over the Nelson Mandela bridge in Johannesburg is sure to set twitter alight.
A photo of a UFO hovering over the N1 highway in Midrand has set social media alight, with people sharing the picture and commenting on what they saw. UFOs always get people excited – and afraid – and perhaps it has something to do with the excitement of not being alone in the ginormous universe.
Connect picked up the photo on facebook just before it went viral, before it launched like a flying saucer into the stratosphere overnight. The original story, which can be read here, shows a giant saucer-shaped, ominous-looking, creepy-villain dwelling space ship just above the clouds.
Austin Rossouw, a graphic artist and animator from Johannesburg, took up The Citizen’s challenge of producing a photo of a UFO above the skyline of Johannesburg. His brief was simple: check out the original photo and give us something that looks like it was taken with a cell phone inside a moving car and put it in a cool location, such as Braamfontein – and make it confusing: maybe it’s a thunder cloud and maybe it is a Zorkmobile from planet Zork (it’s always Zork). 30 minutes later, we had our very own UFO in Johannesburg.
The point of the exercise is to show two things – just how cool Adobe suite is, but also, how easy it is to go viral. One would have thought that in 2015 people would have moved on from believing everything they see and read, just because they see and read it – but that is not the case. Although some people took the picture as a joke, many others shared the photo believing it just might be true.
If the UFO is in fact real, and here I am making a mockery of graphic design 101 and all the believers of the great alien conspiracy, then the joke will be on me. Think about it, these super advanced, freaky (no doubt slightly prawny) beings are here to impress upon us their superiority and here is a little you-know-what called Devlin Brown posting a picture of a fake cloudy UFO in a cooler location – definitely a hipster time-traveler. What if they get cross with me?
Come to think of it – I have been hearing a low rumble behind the window since I started this experiment. My screen flashes and the cursor moves by itself. I’m feeling a bit dizzy, and… the lights are flashing. What is going on? Who’s there? I am just trying to pu ASDA ASD ASD….