Do you believe in alien life? Well if you do, it’s likely that your heart was played with last week, as the world was faced with dramatic news of unidentified flying objects being shot down over the US. What this led to was classic internet ‘memeing’ and speculation, backed up by the US military’s claims that they had “not ruled out” the possibility of alien interference. Despite this latest turn of event, we do know that the first balloon was in fact a Chinese spying device.

The device in question—which was shot down on Saturday 4 February 2023—was a massive floating balloon that was said to be gently making its way through the air over US military bases containing sensitive information. Merely a weather monitoring airship that had blown astray, claimed the Chinese government.

It seemed like that was going to be it for the tension-raising tale, but what followed was the discovery of even more unidentified objects, the language surrounding them now ambiguous and mysterious. The excitement flared again when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered a US warplane to shoot down one of the flying objects which had ended up wandering over northern Canada on Saturday. Suddenly, this all seemed way more serious. Was the US being defended from foreign threats or extraterrestrial ones?

Naturally, netizens did what they know best and began to speculate endlessly about the possibility of alien life and even conflict among nations. Opening the memes with the best news: actress, performer and all-around icon Liza Minnelli has outlived the spy balloon.

Liza Minnelli has outlived the Chinese spy balloon. The United States shot it down over the Atlantic Ocean.

— LizaMinnelliOutlives (@LiZaOutlives) February 4, 2023

The internet has kept up momentum, tying in the spy balloon drama with the strange backup dancers spotted during Rihanna’s performance at last weekend’s Super Bowl.

Spy balloons coming from China like: pic.twitter.com/7nbp8eDTpv

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) February 13, 2023

Redditors were also relishing in the alien discourse, with one user making a comparison between a headline urging Americans to not take “pot shots” at the UFOs, with a line from Independence Day.

Comment
by u/Skeletoregano from discussion Police beg locals to refrain from taking "pot shots" at Chinese spy balloon
in nottheonion

The same headlines urging people not to shoot at the “aliens” prompted this hilarious comparison between that time a group of American southerners tried to kill a drone. Classic Americans.

rip chinese spy balloon (2023-2023) pic.twitter.com/73AhSzSHlg

— sweeeeet emooootionn 🎙️ (@alexpoove) February 4, 2023

Finally Twitter’s current despot, Elon Musk couldn’t help himself and weighed in on the speculation, confirming what we always knew about him—that he’s probably an alien.

Don’t worry, just some of my 👽 🛸 friends of mine stopping by …

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2023

My personal favourite meme from the onslaught of posts dominating my feed was this one which compared the current alien panic with that of the pandemic we all just suffered through. Are we going to get a UFO lockdown and UFO paid leave? Unlikely.

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A post shared by @harrisonlambert_memes

Despite the memes and good spirits online, many users were quick to point out the possibility of this so-called sighting simply being a news cycle distraction. All carefully orchestrated to keep the media focus away from information surrounding the utter ecological disaster that Ohio is currently facing following a chemical train derailment. Light hearted memeing or government psy-op? You decide.

It seems as though not even blood thirst and satanic rituals can keep a couple together these days. Vampiric duo of the decade Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly (MGK) have allegedly called it quits after almost three years together. How do we know this? Because of social media… duh.

On 12 February 2023, Fox shared two images on her Instagram, one of a mirror selfie and the next of a burning pot of letters. The caption read: “You can taste the dishonesty. It’s all over your breath.” Now, for those of us well versed in the art of breakup lyrics, we instantly recognised these words from Beyoncé’s 2016 song ‘Pray You Catch Me’, a track which originated off of the artist’s album Lemonade—dedicated to unravelling the infidelity of Bey’s husband Jay Z.

This isn’t the first time fans have speculated about the couple and whether or not they’ve split. However, this is the first time Fox herself has made a significant social media statement regarding her fiancé (or should we say, ex-fiancé?).

Following the initial post, the actress promptly deleted her page and went radio silence online. Netizens, however, were naturally unsatisfied and took it upon themselves to delve deeper into the Fox/MGK relationship vortex, finding screenshots online of the actress’ social media activity just before she shut down her account.

Their first clue came in the form of Fox’s following tab which had been blitzed by the actress, leaving only three celebrities: Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet, and Eminem. Everyone who follows the rap scene even semi-closely will know that MGK and the ‘Rap God’ have had a fraught past and so Fox’s IG follow seemed highly suspicious.

Another pretty massive tip-off has been the fact that the Jennifer’s Body star, again prior to her closing her account, had deleted all of her pictures with MGK—a classic signal of splitsville that all of us gen Zers can relate to. Some fans, who were clearly very against the ‘Bloody Valentine’ rapper, shared their excitement on Twitter.

megan fox dumping mgk and deleting all the photos of him… the earth is healing pic.twitter.com/jEQp0AK20z

— zack (@AvatriceSolos) February 12, 2023

https://twitter.com/cammquin/status/1624693944796815360

Prior to the online hints, a number of individuals were quite disturbed at the sight of Fox at the 2023 Grammy awards. The actress had a broken wrist and had also confirmed on Instagram that she was suffering from a concussion. While the injuries have in no way been linked to MGK, or indeed a domestic dispute, the sights did worry fans of the actress online.

A cohort of lip readers also spent time on TikTok deciphering what appeared to be a pretty intense argument between the pair during the awards ceremony.

@impossiblyasleep

What were megan and mgk talking about do you think? 👀 #mgk #meganfox #grammys #lipreading

♬ original sound - Bella Tanner

Neither of the pair have made any further public comments regarding their relationship status. But, from what we can see, it’s not looking good for what was once considered Hollywood’s most daring couple.