Silhouettes of aliens creature on dark background (Miami Mall not pictured) – Courtesy: Shutterstock – Image by FOTOKITA
Police assembling, teenagers sprinting, and a gray patch that seems to be moving: This week, on social media, footage from a Miami outdoor mall gave rise to hysterical allegations that aliens had touched down on Earth. However, the reality is much more grounded.
The Miami Police Department reported that on Monday, some fifty teens started a brawl at Bayside Marketplace, an outdoor shopping center located about five miles from South Beach.
Michael Vega, a public relations officer with the Miami Police Department, stated that the adolescents were lighting off fireworks, which caused fear since some people thought there was a shooting. Four teenagers were taken into custody.
According to Vega’s email to NBC News, police were called in “for crowd control due to the juveniles refusing to leave.” “We temporarily closed some businesses so we could clear the area.”
Following the incident, social media users went on the rampage, focusing their speculations on what they called “Miami Mall Aliens.” Some said that rather than teens, the police were reacting to aliens. After watching the shaky video of the incident that was making the rounds online, several people said they could make out an alien figure. Memes were promptly posted by others.
Even while a lot of the online comments seemed amusing, the posts demonstrate how rapidly and readily false information can proliferate on social media. The answer also highlights the renewed interest in extraterrestrial activity, which began with hearings in Congress last summer concerning “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or “UAPs,” and continued with the Congress of Mexico showcasing what it claimed to be “nonhuman” aliens. Those two incidents also made for excellent meme material.
Vega asserted that aliens were unrelated to the events of Monday, nevertheless.
“Aliens weren’t present,” he stated in the email. There were no airport closures. Nothing is being kept from the general people. LOL.
Nevertheless, “Miami Mall Alien” was trending on the social media platform X by Friday afternoon.
“10ft Aliens/Creatures (caught on camera?) fired at inside and outside Miami Mall, media silent, cops are covering it up saying kids were fighting with fireworks, yet all these cop cars, & air traffic stopped that night except for black military choppers…and no media coverage,” claimed one post on X, which on Friday appeared to trigger a slew of conspiracy theories and memes.
A user made the joke that the AI-generated image, which seemed to show a generic alien carrying shopping bags, was “The Miami Mall Alien.”
A different user uploaded a picture of golfer Tiger Woods with the message, “Me to the aliens if I’d been at the Miami mall,” as if he were shaking someone’s hand.
Others said that if aliens had been detected just a few days into January, the coming year would have been crazy.
The person wrote, “People spotting aliens in the Miami Mall on the fifth day of the New Year are in for one hell of a ride.”
Naturally, several people questioned: If there was an alien sighting, where is the evidence?
“Everyone has a cell phone, but does anyone have a close-up video of the eight to ten-foot alien outside the Miami mall?” wrote a user named X.
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Mike has more than 30 years of experience in marketing and public relations. He once owned his own agency and has worked with some of the largest brands in the world.
