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Twitter, a site I still refuse to refer to as X, was ablaze with talk of a purported alien sighting in Miami this week following a large police presence at a mall. But one quick scroll through such claims, not to mention the employment of basic common sense, shows the chatter is almost certainly another case of time-wasting dumbassery.
Here’s the short of it: On New Year’s Day, an admittedly massive police presence was filmed in the Bayside Marketplace shopping area. Ultimately, several arrests were made after police initially received reports of a fight, as well as word that multiple individuals in the area shot off fireworks.
Footage from the scene made its way to Twitter, TikTok, and elsewhere before some started pushing the "Miami mall alien" conspiracy theory by pointing to a portion of the footage they insisted showed a tall "creature" of some sort. Zoomed in or otherwise, the portion of the footage in question was decidedly not clear, nor did it definitively suggest anything other than so-so video quality.
It’s worth noting that the theory was being spread by largely alt-righty and wildly questionable accounts on social media, including one we won’t name here that openly aligns itself with flat-out falsehoods.
When reached for comment by Complex on Friday, a rep for the Miami Police Department confirmed that multiple officers had responded to “a large fight” at the scene.
“There were no aliens, UFOs, or ETs,” the rep said in an email. “No airports were closed. No power outages. Nothing is being withheld from the public.”
Per police, the fight involved “over 50 juveniles possibly armed with sticks,” while other individuals allegedly involved in the incident were “discharging fireworks.” The latter noise was at one point mistaken for gunfire.
“Citywide officers were on scene for crowd control due to the juveniles refusing to leave,” the rep added. “Some businesses were temporarily closed to allow us to clear the area but were immediately reopened."
The department also issued similar statements to other outlets, TMZ among them.
It’s always a blistering bummer whenever this kind of shit takes off among some of the dumbest people alive, as it only hurts the larger and very real issue of UAP research and associated issues. But don't let the bullshit discourage you. There have been plenty of legit UAP-related stories in recent years, including several noteworthy developments in 2023.
To further endear myself to the actual aliens that are surely fans of my work, let the record show that I knew from the jump that no intelligent extraterrestrial being would travel all this way just to fuck around at a mall.
