So is this an alien invasion? (link)

[Brutus]

Indian intelligence agents seem to be at a loss for an ‘scientific’ explanation of what is going on.

Of course, I do not believe it is an alien invasion. But still, this seems to be a rather interesting story. Anyone have more information on this?

[SUPERKARLENE]

At first I thought What a cute joke!

And then I realized that this wasn’t a fake website. :eek: If this is true, it scares the gajeebers out of me.

A MYSTERIOUS flying object said to attack sleeping villagers has sparked mass hysteria and rioting across the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Curious that it only attacks the sleeping villagers. Do the “sleeping villagers” wake up to these things flying around them? Or do their family members wake them up with all the screaming?

Police shot dead one man and injured 12 others when a mob of hundreds stormed the police station in Barabanki, demanding protection against what they believe is an alien assailant terrorising villages.

This sounds a lot like what happened when Orson Welles gave his “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t scared people all over the USA storm their police departments demanding answers?

The object, described as a flying sphere emitting red and blue light, is said to strike in the middle of the night, leaving victims with burns or scratches on their faces and limbs, and earning it the name the muhnochwa (face-scratcher).

At least seven unexplained deaths in the area have been attributed to the muhnochwa… Officials have suggested a raft of explanations, from an alien invasion to a new and unknown breed of insect.

That would be a relief. (“Honey, it’s them pesky alien bugs again! Where’s the RAID!”)

Perhaps the most bizarre theory was that of Police Deputy Inspector General K. N. D. Dwivedi, who said that the assailant was a genetically engineered insect introduced by “anti-national elements” from outside India to cause mayhem.

An incredible subculture of fear would have to exist for him to suggest that Pakistan had gone to all the trouble of engineering bugs specifically to torment people. Reminds me of all the terrible things that the Nazis used to attribute to the Jews.

If it is aliens, I’d want to know their reasons for badgering these poor people. Are they getting blood samples with all that scratching?

[Brutus]

The Times of India (google it), has a story attributing the scratchings and whatnot to a rare species of grasshopper.

Grasshoppers that burn and emit various lights?

Like said, I do not think that this is a ‘paranormal’ event, but darned interesting nonetheless. I’ve been reading a bit of Loren Coleman stuff online, (he’s a cryptozooligist, which is a bit of a psuedo-science to me, but hey…), and there are all sorts of neato things like this going on. ‘Skunk Apes’ in Florida, glowing and aggressive grasshoppers in India, etc.

Hey, now that X-Files is over with, we need the occasional story like this!

[Earthling]

India, eh? Looks like we were just down this road not too long ago.

2001/05/15, Ananova, Police suspect ‘monkey man’ is alien or remote-controlled robot
2001/05/16, CNN, ‘Monkey Man’ fears rampant in New Delhi

[Tars_Tarkas]

I bet the aliens heard of Monkey Man and came to investigate…