Post by auntym on Sept 9, 2014 11:33:17 GMT -6
uk.yahoo.com/movies/what-connects-will-smith-with-ufos-96969854186.html
What Connects Will Smith With UFOs?
Mark Lankester
8 Sep 2014
In 1996 something strange happened in the UK. From out of nowhere our fair island was swarmed with reports of strange lights in the sky, mysterious craft and flying saucers. The Ministry Of Defence’s UFO desk was inundated with almost six times as many sightings as the year before.
Was it an invasion? Was E.T. finally here? Well, no… it was Will Smith.
[Watch Will Smith In Men In Black II On Sky Movies]
“Popular culture informs what we see in the sky, and then how we interpret it,” says UFO expert Dr. David Clarke, “You can’t help but absorb it.”
“We’ve grown up with science fiction movies like ‘Independence Day’, and no one can divorce themselves from it. Not that people were seeing that one movie, and then going out to look for UFOs - It simply raised their awareness, and they became more likely to report things,” he says.
David is a Sheffield based journalist, folklore expert, and official consultant to MOD’s Classified UFO files at The National Archives. Think Fox Mulder with a South Yorkshire accent. You can find out more about David’s work on his blog, here.
Roland Emmerich’s alien-invasion spectacular ‘Independence Day’ was 1996’s summer blockbuster and it sent the world extraterrestrial mad. “Newspapers even began running UFO campaigns,” says David, “and the figures leapt from 117 sightings in 1995 to 609 in 1996”
“People would write in with sightings from decades before, encouraged to do so by the craze. It’s the power of popular culture.”
This phenomena of a film affecting UFO reports led to the coining of endearing term “The Will Smith Effect”, but it’s not all down to the Fresh Prince.
CONTINUE READING: uk.yahoo.com/movies/what-connects-will-smith-with-ufos-96969854186.html
What Connects Will Smith With UFOs?
Mark Lankester
8 Sep 2014
In 1996 something strange happened in the UK. From out of nowhere our fair island was swarmed with reports of strange lights in the sky, mysterious craft and flying saucers. The Ministry Of Defence’s UFO desk was inundated with almost six times as many sightings as the year before.
Was it an invasion? Was E.T. finally here? Well, no… it was Will Smith.
[Watch Will Smith In Men In Black II On Sky Movies]
“Popular culture informs what we see in the sky, and then how we interpret it,” says UFO expert Dr. David Clarke, “You can’t help but absorb it.”
“We’ve grown up with science fiction movies like ‘Independence Day’, and no one can divorce themselves from it. Not that people were seeing that one movie, and then going out to look for UFOs - It simply raised their awareness, and they became more likely to report things,” he says.
David is a Sheffield based journalist, folklore expert, and official consultant to MOD’s Classified UFO files at The National Archives. Think Fox Mulder with a South Yorkshire accent. You can find out more about David’s work on his blog, here.
Roland Emmerich’s alien-invasion spectacular ‘Independence Day’ was 1996’s summer blockbuster and it sent the world extraterrestrial mad. “Newspapers even began running UFO campaigns,” says David, “and the figures leapt from 117 sightings in 1995 to 609 in 1996”
“People would write in with sightings from decades before, encouraged to do so by the craze. It’s the power of popular culture.”
This phenomena of a film affecting UFO reports led to the coining of endearing term “The Will Smith Effect”, but it’s not all down to the Fresh Prince.
CONTINUE READING: uk.yahoo.com/movies/what-connects-will-smith-with-ufos-96969854186.html
