The latest instance of wildly questionable footage being far too widely treated as legit, particularly that of the purported “alien” variety, added a new wrinkle this week after Italian basketball player Felipe Motta joked that he was actually the person seen in a viral hiking clip.
As you may or may not have seen depending on your aversion to such things, the footage in question purported to show what some claimed was a "10-foot alien" seemingly out for a hilltop stroll on an island in Brazil. In fact, the clip claimed to show two such purported creatures.
Shortly after the footage started its path toward virality, the Flamengo basketball team player took to TikTok and Instagram to share a jokingly presented claim that the video shows him simply out for a hike. From there, Motta, who's reportedly six-six, touched on the various difficulties that often face someone who's exceptionally tall.
Somehow, Motta’s joke was subsequently made the center of reports suggesting that he was being quite serious, despite the whole thing clearly being a joke. In fact, Motta himself later addressed the news coverage of his TikTok in an Instagram Stories update, calling it “bizarre” and noting there’s been “enough” of such talk.
As we already pointed out when reluctantly covering the Miami mall conspiracy theories, giving too much attention to these types of viral videos is a waste of time when we have no shortage of legitimate UAP-focused developments we could instead be obsessing over. If recent updates are any indication, we should thankfully see plenty more developments on that front throughout 2024.
