Elvis and UFOs
Darn, now I’ll never be a millionaire.
So, it is in that spirit that we trundle forward today. Imagine, if you will, that you’re cold sober in the middle of London and suddenly are accosted by 60 Elvi (that being the plural for Elvis). Well, that’s what happened recently to a group of people at a Holiday Inn in the U.K.
A group of panicked Elvises were left all shook up when they had to flee a hotel with the fire alarm ringing.
Around 60 Kings were rocking when a smoke machine went wrong and they had to get out fast.
Bewildered hotel guests, dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, were even more surprised when they were confronted by a sea of rhinestones in the car park.
One guest said: “I was in a bit of a state getting out of my room. But I was more confused when I got outside to see all these people dressed as Elvis.
“There were people in the full Elvis jumpsuits and wigs standing by a roundabout, looking a bit the worse for wear.”
The Elvis impersonators were at the Holiday Inn in Rochester, Kent, for a charity fundraiser in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support when the alarms sounded on Saturday night.
Kevin Coombes, hotel manager, said: “A smoke machine set off the fire alarm and at no point was anyone in any danger, but yes, Elvis did leave the building.”
Silly English, can’t even speak the language right. I already told them that the proper plural was Elvi.
That being said, how can you possibly tell anyone about this unless you have pics of you and the Elvi? Otherwise I would think that people would treat your credibility the same way I treat the nice man at the library’s.
Of course not everyone can be accosted by Elvi. Some people need to be accosted by UFOs. And, of course, the local Air Force loves getting calls about them (call twice, that makes them happy). They get even happier when the people calling are reporting the sighting of a B -2 Stealth Bomber.
People in Missouri have been scratching their heads this month over a rash of UFO sightings that has them wondering if it’s alien visitors, small plane experimental flying teams, the B-2 stealth bomber or all of the above.
So far, eyewitnesses in the “Show Me” state have been entertained by aerial displays of lights or orbs in the night sky, with the majority of sightings centered around the Kansas City area.
“With all the sightings, we’ve had a description of a triangle-shaped craft with multicolored lights surrounding it,” said Debbie Ziegelmeyer, state director for Missouri MUFON, a chapter of the International Mutual UFO Network.
“We have information that the nearby Whiteman Air Force Base, 50 miles east of Kansas City, is under a yellow alert with training mission activities of the B-2 stealth bombers around the area.”
But, according to Ziegelmeyer, it wasn’t just the B-2 craft that may be responsible for many of the nearly 60 UFO sightings since the beginning of the month.
“We learned about an EAA flight team (Experimental Aircraft Association), based in Lee’s Summit, Mo., that was doing some stunt flying on Oct. 4,” Ziegelmeyer told The Huffington Post.
“They practiced for an audition to do a night aerial formation flight for the Kansas City Chiefs. Their team leader told me it was a group of six small planes that fly in groups, and they flew together in a delta or triangular formation, circling over Lee’s Summit before heading to Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Chiefs, where they circled the stadium and then returned to the Lee’s Summit Municipal Airport.”
“If you look at the first 12 seconds of the video, you can see them aligned with another smaller dot in the sky,” Ziegelmeyer said. “Around half way through the video, the lights try to group up and you can make out a light strobing effect on one of them as they’re turning.
“Then, near the end of the video, they start to form a triangle-shape formation.”
Over in Independence, Mo., MUFON assistant state director Margie Kay is busy trying to unravel the mystery of several UFO reports that don’t appear to be either the stealth bomber or a squadron of stunt flyers.
One video, taken from inside a car, appears to show two glowing spheres or orbs chasing each other around in the night sky.
“The strangest thing about this and other events that happened over several days are these spheres, some of which were reported very close to people — as close as 30 feet away and in or behind their backyards,” Kay told HuffPost. “We don’t have an explanation for it yet.”
When the Missouri UFO reports started coming in, Kay contacted Whiteman Air Force Base.
“They can’t tell us very much, but they did say that they’re running B-2 training missions during October. So we think that some of the sightings that were from a distance may have been this,” Kay explained.
She added that they’re most interested in investigating the still-unexplained sightings, like the one of a large craft reported hovering 30 feet above a water tower in Raytown, Mo., on Oct. 4.
“It was round in shape with lights all over the entire bottom of it, and then it raised up a little bit, turned 90 degrees on its side, flew for a little while and then shot off at what the witness said was light speed — it was instantly gone.
“There may be some experimental aircraft that can do this, but we’re not being told about it. For them to do this in a metropolitan area is a little odd.”
Clifford W. Clift Jr., MUFON’s international director, told HuffPost he was surprised when their typical national monthly average of 500 UFO reports jumped to over 1,000 in August.
“We found there was no computer problem or duplication of reports. Then we discovered that over 50 percent of the number over the 500 average were old cases from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.”
MUFON tried to evaluate why people were now reporting old cases and, according to Clift, “This past summer and into the fall, there were so many UFO documentary shows being run that included MUFON’s name that people finally learned where they could report a UFO event.
“I think that’s why we’ve had such a significant increase.”
And as we’ve seen in Missouri, a variety of things could account for UFO sightings. The only thing left to say about that is “Show me!”
If you watch the video (linked above) you’ll note three things; (1) the camera person is shooting directly over a street light; (2) the camera moves far more than any of the objects and (3) the objects behave exactly like military planes aligning into a night time formation.
But other than that it’s a perfect video of UFOs.
Not all weird things involve aliens however. Some involve beer. Although I would wager that the number of tiems both were involved is a very large one. Nevertheless police in Brazil are trying to figure out how over 100 cases of beer were delivered to a jail.
Brazilian police say they are trying to find out why 2,600 cans of beer were delivered to a jail holding police officers charged with crimes.
The Rio de Janeiro radio station BandNews FM reports the beer was delivered Sunday to the prison in a northern suburb of the city.
Police inspector Waldyr Soares Filho tells the O Globo newspaper that officials are investigating the person who allowed the alcohol into the facility. He says he does not believe it was meant to be used for a party, but doesn’t offer an alternative explanation.
Local newspapers last month published photos of a party at the same jail thrown by an officer charged with 16 murders. The man later escaped.
Have they ruled out aliens? I know I haven’t.
Speaking of aliens, let’s finish today off with a jaunt down to Florida. Everyone’s favorite Martian, Rep. Rich Workman, is being forced to defend his “pro dwarf tossing” position.
He also defends another one, but I’m saving that until you’ve read this.
Rep. Ritch Workman is a regulation-chopping Republican lawmaker who says yes to liberty, personal freedom and “dwarf-tossing,” but no to gay marriage, medical marijuana and other libertarian causes.
The Florida state representative is battling Big Brother in some, but not all of its forms. In his quest to eliminate what he describes as unnecessary Sunshine State laws, Workman has exposed himself to controversy this month by pushing to legalize “dwarf-tossing.”
Make no mistake, Workman is no fan of the banned bar competition in which little people are literally turned into human shot puts.
“It’s a barbaric activity,” said Workman, first elected to the statehouse in 2008 to represent Melbourne, a city of 78,000 residents east of Orlando.
“But they [little people] don’t need government to decide for them,” he added. “This is insulting. Their actions aren’t endangering anybody else. For every law that’s on the books a little piece of your liberty and freedom is lost.”
But don’t ask Workman to advocate for gay marriage, medical marijuana or prostitution.
“I’m not a libertarian,” Workman said. “Prostitution and drug abuse are not situations that don’t affect anyone else. Prostitution spreads communicable diseases. Medical marijuana is just a way to legalize marijuana and we don’t need to give our kids other things to get high on.”
“I understand the almost-irony of me fighting to remove this ban [on dwarf-tossing] and my not wanting to legalize drugs and prostitution,” Workman said. “I don’t see them as parallels.”
Workman, who says he is a Christian, said he wasn’t interested in writing a state constitutional amendment allowing same-sex marriages either. He does, however, favor legalizing adultery among heterosexual couples.
There are other prohibitions and illicit activities that Workman said he sees as pointless intrusions on personal freedom. He’s introduced bills this term that would repeal the statutes banning beer bottle collections and requiring bicyclists to ride with at least one hand on the handlebars at all times. Another Workman number would allow unmarried men and women to legally live together.
The chances of scrapping these allegedly inane measures are not promising. Workman said he doesn’t expect a sponsor to emerge in the state Senate for the bills, because there’s little to be gained politically by tackling the obscure topics.
Nothing’s whipped up more controversy than his bill to lift the 22-year-old ban on “dwarf-tossing,” an activity that took root in some bars around the state in the 1980s.
Complaints and criticism have flooded his office, he said, especially from little people around the country. The Little People of America launched an Internet petition to voice disapproval of his idea.
“The issue with dwarf-tossing is it objectifies the entire little person community,” said Jennifer Arnold, the 3-foot-2-inch co-star of the reality show “The Little Couple.” Arnold, who has dwarfism, is now a Texas pediatrician, but grew up in Florida when “dwarf-tossing” was legal.
“My biggest concern is to feel that we’re going backwards,” she said. “It seems okay today to still make fun of little people. It’s not okay to do that for races, religions and other disabled people.”
Yeah, the second part kind of skips by. He wants to legalize adultery. But only for straight people. Something tells me his wife’s ears perked up on that little tid bit. But, as to the concerns espoused by Dr. Arnold in the last couple of paragraphs, I wouldn’t worry. When people like Mr. Workman get done, you’ll be able to make fun of anyone with any handicap as well as anyone who isn’t just like him.
So, hang in there, you’re about to be joined by some very august company.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7movKfyTBII&w=480&h=360]
Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!
