Things that go bang in the night

What were the strange ‘explosions’ heard nationwide last Saturday night?

Fireworks? Experimental Spy plane? Alien invasion?!

I suppose if it was the latter, we would probably know about it by now. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from science fiction shows, it’s that your average alien doesn’t hang around for a while observing – they get straight in there with the killing or probing. Or both, depending on how annoyed they are with Bruce Willis.

Having said that, they were a bit more discreet in 1990s paranoia-fest the X-Files, and merely wanted to control mankind. That might explain why it’s taken until now for Gillian Anderson to randomly take all her clothes off on television.

But I digress. The pulses of bangs at about 10pm last Saturday were widely heard, with many people assuming it was just a random fireworks display, with one rather unusual feature; you couldn’t actually see it.

Whilst Twitter did it’s brilliant thing of pulling together lots of people who all wanted to know what it was, but not anyone that actually knew, it wasn’t until the next day that the media caught up and began reporting the phenomena, plus it’s associated conspiracy theories, with an archly raised eyebrow.

You know a news reader is taking it a little less than fully seriously when they smile, start the article off with the word “Now...” before pausing dramatically, and have a suitably ridiculous picture of an alien behind them.

Some of the finer theories have included the aforementioned fireworks, but that would have required nationwide coordination we simply aren’t capable of, unless it involves voting for someone in a dancing/reality show on the telebox.

Meteor breaking up overhead? Well, possibly. Boffins have ruled that one out, though.

Unusual weather conditions, then. That’ll be it for sure. Except no-one can explain the staccato sound of the bangs, especially not the Met Office, and to be fair – they should know. They’re weather nerds.

Sonic booms from RAF jets sounded plausible, until a MoD spokesman said nothing had been scrambled (unless that was a clever bit of diversion, and they were talking about the eggs they had for breakfast). If this was a precursor to WW3, then it’s been oddly quiet since. Ominously, even. Try not to think too much about that though. It’ll be fine. You’ve got those extra tins of beans in the cellar, and some spare batteries, right?

Best, and most paranoid, theory of all involves pulse detonation engines, an alleged US covert spy plane project called Aurora, and a modern-day development of technology first used early last century in German V-1 flying bombs.

Add in splash of routine denial, a twist of a sighting of a high speed triangular object in 1989, and the appearance of the word “Aurora” in Pentagon budget reports, and before you can say “what’s that funny banging noise?”, a completely un-provable theory is born.

“Spooky” Mulder would be proud. The truth is out there...

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 5th of December 2014. You can view the edited version published by the paper on their website here

This one seems to have got a quite thorough edit. Whilst losing only about 25 words, the trims were carefully precise, and included some rewording to shorten the sentences. The Bruce Willis line went altogether (which is a shame - I liked that joke), the fireworks line was reworded, 'telebox' was obviously considered unclear, and replaced with 'telly', and the bit about Met Office employees being nerds went - presumably in case I was libelling them.

Great subject though. It seems to have vanished again without anyone figuring out what it was, or coming up with a genuinely plausible explanation. Which make you wonder, doesn't it...?

(If you're reading this on a flickering screen in some kind of fallout shelter, then ha! I was bloody right, wasn't I? And probably dead now.)

(Blogged whilst listening to a cassette of The Beatles - Anthology 1.)