If you’re a frequent user of Google, chances are you’ve been noticing a few oddities. For example, it’s no surprise when the search engine giant puts up a funky new logo, often it’s related to a holiday or celebration. Usually, if you hold your mouse over the logo, it will pop up with an explanation such as “Dr. Seuss’ birthday”. These latest logos, however, have been lacking that useful information and leaving users wondering.
The first incidence of alien oddness on Google was a UFO beaming up an “o” from the logo. Then today, people reported spotting the company’s logo designed in crop circles, though it seems to be gone now.
Not surprisingly, Google is remaining pretty tightlipped about the whole thing. In fact, their tweets which are most likely regarding the UFO and crop circles are cryptic at best, with strings of numbers and coordinates that seem to have nothing in common.
The first Twitter message, “1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19.” was later deciphered and discovered to be a play on a phrase from the Japanese game, Zero Wing. In the game, the phrase goes “All your base are belong to us” and the numbers Google tweeted translated into “All your O are belong to us.” It seemed fairly cut and dried and everyone assumed that this was just a tribute to Zero Wing. Not so anymore.
This crop circle logo was accompanied by a tweet which contained coordinates, “51.327629, -0.5616088“. Those coordinates mark the first landing place of the UFOs in H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, Horsell, England. You can bet this locale is now one of the most searched for places on Google Maps.
What does it all mean? No one knows for sure, but theories are rampant. Some people think it might be connected to the crop circles on Google Earth that have been spotted over the years by computer navigators, maybe even forcasting the apparition of a new one. UFO fanatics claim the search engine has been hacked by aliens while a number of people think it’s just added publicity for Google Earth or even a nod at the UFO convention that was held this week. . Others wonder if it might be part of a larger launch . . . perhaps Google Caffeine will have a more extraterrestial name?
Whatever the search engine is up to, it’s working, everyone is talking about them! “Crop Circles on Google Earth” is one of the top 100 most popular phrases in search at the time of this writing, according to Google Trends. Let’s keep our eyes peeled to see what comes up next on the giant search engine.
Sometimes the pieces just fall into place. This has to be the best marketing campaign I’ve never paid for, given that I’ve just had a book published called Waging the War of the Worlds. Thank you Google :-)