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Will aliens change the world this weekend?

3 years ago1,278 words

According to a post on Reddit 7 years ago, aliens will make some kind of contact (or something) on the 18th of July 2021, which is a couple of days from now. But will they??

I've written about this in at least one other post about UFOs not too long ago, but since the date's imminent now, I wanted to make a note of it again.

To summarise what happened, seven years ago a person on Reddit - using a throwaway account called Throawaylien [sic] - wrote some intriguingly detailed accounts of his experiences being abducted multiple times over the course of his life, talking with the aliens and even (kind of) befriending a pair of them. Notably, this wasn't posted in a UFO-related subreddit to attract attention to himself; it was written as a response to an AskReddit thread asking about abduction experiences. Most of his details were provided in responses to other people's questions.

∞ (Link to a post with all of his comments and various other resources.) ∞

He said that the aliens talked about something happening on the 18th of July 2021; something like... one group has been overseeing the Earth for several thousand years, but they'll be leaving and another lot of aliens - which they were at war with? - will be taking over, which may or may not lead to contact or enormous societal shifts. He mentioned this seven years ago, but it was mostly just forgotten among all the other world-changing prophecies people make all the time (and which never come true).

As 2021 arrived and progressed, though, UFOs started gaining mainstream attention. UFO-related communities and figures became very active, apparently pushing for disclosure. A US government report came out confirming that UFOs are at least real (if not what they are or where they're from), which is a big shift from the denial and ridicule that's surrounded the topic for decades. The strange timing caused a lot of growth on UFO-related subreddits, and some of them revisited Throawaylien's account because of the remarkable coincidence of the predicted date.

Then Throawaylien came back, continuing his story from seven years prior, with a much darker tone. He seemed very mentally unwell, but the details he gave didn't clash with what he'd said before. He claimed the 18th of July date was still going to happen, though he wasn't sure exactly what might happen. Just that we'd know. He then deleted his account.

His reemergence was met with hostility and rejection by the looking-a-fool-fearing majority, but a smaller number of curious, sympathetic people gathered together and formed ∞ a community ∞ to discuss his story. It grew; currently it has over 11,000 members since its start in April. The prevailing attitude there is that the whole thing is just a 'larp', but that it's more enjoyable to remain curious, to wonder, than it is to smugly dismiss. "Probably nothing will happen, but I kind of hope it does" or "but what if it does?" This is my attitude towards the whole thing too, so it's been really pleasant just reading people's speculation and discussions and the fairly regular posts about how it's such a nicer community than the more toxic UFO ones.

When the 18th passes, they're saying they absolutely won't move the goalposts - they'll shut down the community - but they've already created another less specific one which they hope will have a similar welcoming-of-wonder atmosphere. I hope that too! I've subscribed to it, though I'll only be lurking.

There have also been a lot of sceptical dissections and doubts of Throawaylien's posts and overall story, but they've yet to definitively prove that the whole thing is a hoax (or 'larp'). A handful of other people have shown up making similar bold claims about alien contact, but they were unmasked (under threat of doxxing in one case), fairly quickly, which makes the mystery of Throawaylien all the more fascinating.

Some of the analyses have been particularly interesting. Throawaylien claimed to have been abducted regularly for most of his life - every few years - and gave a few dates spread across various comments, not in chronological order, which ∞ this person created a timeline of ∞. They apparently add up, suggesting the whole timeline was either planned in advance, or it actually happened.

An obvious thought is that he's telling what he believes to be the truth, even if it's at odds with consensual reality. It's possible, but he doesn't come across as scattered or chaotic as someone with schizophrenia. Returning seven years after his original claims to support them seems to clash with that too. It's also an oddly long time to keep up a charade (though it'd be less odd than it being true, I suppose).

There was also ∞ this person ∞ (link is to all their comments) who came along claiming to have also been abducted by the same set of aliens, due to eerie similarities between their experiences. Perhaps someone with more desire to stretch their creative writing legs than moral reluctance to deceive, or - if the whole account is true - it'd make sense that someone else who'd been through it might appear. Some details are notable, like Throawaylien describing the aliens' small ships like this:



While the other person describes them like this:





That's either an impressive display of comprehension skills combined with creativity, or two people using different comparisons to attempt to describe the same object.

Or both authors are the same person who's kept an elaborate plan of their lies.




So the 18th is just a couple of days off now. Do I think anything will happen? Probably not, but the anticipation that something might has been electric recently, and I appreciate going along with the ride for that alone.

Are you familiar with John Titor? That was a guy who claimed in depth to be a time traveller from the future, and the overall feeling of the narrative was very similar to this one. I think that eventually the writer was found to be some lonely nerdy guy or something - of course - just doing it to add some magic to his otherwise miserable life, and chances are this is pretty much the same scenario.

Still, it's made my miserable life a little bit more interesting over these past few weeks, so even if there's zero payoff, I'm still glad I followed the story and the discussions around it.

Or who knows, maybe he's telling the truth and our lives as we know them will be over on the weekend. I don't think our brains can even process such an idea!



Even if this particular story turns out to be nothing, we do seem to be in the middle of a years-long disclosure, so it'll be interesting seeing how drastically our views about this stuff might shift over the coming decade.