Aliens in Colorado?

Hooboy! This is something more than a little interesting. Interesting? Why? Well ... it's something that seems to be really bringing out the loonies and the crunchy ones. But first, a disclaimer:

I do not know if intelligent alien life exists. I suspect that if it does, then "they" (the aliens) almost certainly have not visited the earth, mainly because of the truly unfathomable distances present in our galaxy. Of course, I've been told that distance means nothing, so I could be wrong ...

I have to invoke my standard argument when people start making statements along the line of "it's too complex (or whatever) to have been made by man". This statement is quite commonly made about the so-called "real" crop circles. See, because there are lots of examples of "fake" ones being made by bored engineering (or computer science, or just about any other) students just to get mentioned in the local newspaper. Quite complex (and convincing) crop circles, too.

Others have blogged about this "genuine" alien video, much more thoroughly than I am about to do. What really blows my mind is that some clever folk actually made a hoax video (and are claiming it a hoax, as well) that's better than the original. Go figure. And some nutjobs are touting the hoax as genuine. Yep. Them's painted-on zebra stripes, they is. But they shore do look real!

Orac at ScienceBlogs really deconstructs the alien video, wondering aloud why in this age of 10 megapixel, digitial, image-stabilized, high-speed, etc., etc., camera and video equipment we can't seem to get a single good freakin' clear alien picture? Indeed. I wonder this very thing nearly every day. And I ain't got no good answers, either.

Except, of course, that there are some women you might take home after a night of drinking who in the morning will have you amazed at the efficacy of your beer goggles. What's my point? That there are some things you really don't want to see too damned clearly. Especially if you really, really want to believe.

The truth is out there. And it's a whole lot stranger than what you think it is.