Editing 2572: Alien Observers

{{comic
| number    = 2572
| date      = January 24, 2022
| title     = Alien Observers
| image     = alien_observers.png
| titletext = ALERT: Human 910-25J-1Q38 has created a Youtube channel. Increase erratic jerkiness of flying by 30% until safely out of range.
}}
*This was the seventh comic to come out after the [[Countdown in header text]] started.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLURRY MARTIAN SPACECRAFT- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
There is speculation by many people that there could be some form of extraterrestrial life observing us, hovering around in various flying vehicles or perhaps using some form of giant telescope. These claims are often backed up by blurry pictures which claim to be of alien vehicles. In this comic, the joke is that the aliens are deliberately making sure that all sightings are made unverifiable. However, with [[1235:_Settled|most people now carrying a camera with them all the time]], a sighting that would be unverifiable just by eyewitness testimony could now be captured by a smartphone camera.

This means that in order for the aliens to keep creating unverifiable sightings for humans, they must keep track of what camera capabilities each human has, leading to different distance restrictions for each human, as seen in the diagram. The effective range of each person's camera is depicted as a circular (or spherical) envelope around themselves, two on the cross-sectional diagram and at at least one located off beyond the image edge.

There is also an apparently flat ground-hugging 'no fly zone' connecting two of these areas. This may be part of a general prohibition against landing (and/or causing verifiable ground effects, such as {{w|crop circles}}) or it could be there to show that the capability of a self-focussing camera is greatly enhanced when it also has ground-features to autofocus upon rather than a subject surrounded by nothing but sky.

The comic attempts to explain away the issue already discussed in prior comics, such as [718: The Flake Equation] and [1235:_Settled], in which the phenomenon of UFO sightings/reports is still left not resolved (either way) despite what modern technology should suggest is possible. It appears that the reason for this is that the {{tvtropes|Sufficiently_Advanced_Alien|sufficiently advanced aliens}} actually make more than enough observations of the human race to continuously determine how to stay just on the side of plausible deniability in any interactions that they still seem to wish to make.

The attitude of the aliens also mirrors that of some humans, when they learn that another of their fellow humans has just started using the very latest phone (often at great expense) despite having changed to their now-old phone, not that long ago, when ''it'' was amongst the most advanced on the market.

In the title text, the aliens note that one particular human now has a YouTube account, meaning they are likely to record video instead of attempting to capture still images. This means that the alien craft used to create the sighting must behave as erratically as possible, in order to avoid being identified. This relates to the often wildly oscillating (as well as blurry) films and videos of 'UFOs' that have been taken by the impromptu human observer, beyond the limit of their ability to hold their fully-zoomed camera steady. Although here it is explained away as the flying saucers ''actually'' moving in an improbably jerky manner to prevent detailed recording of their craft. Further briefings of the sort depicted would doubtless accompany upgrades in optical/digital-stability features or the purchase of a camera tripod.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[3 humanoid aliens each with 6 tentacle legs and 2 eye stalks observe an image on a screen. One of the aliens is standing to the left of the screen with one of its tentacle arms raised, while the other 2 stand to the right of the screen.]
:[The screened image itself depicts a cross-sectional diagram showing 2 human figures in a landscape and 4 UFO-like spaceships in the air. There is a shaded area marked above the humans and terrain, which all the UFOs are conspicuously outside. The shaded areas boundary consists of arcs of differing sizes centered upon each human, including a presumed third one with a very large apparent radius whose focus is significantly beyond the left edge of the image. There is a flat boundary line joining the small central human's 'bubble' and the off-left one, that would not otherwise meet. The rightmost human's zone has an annulus hashed in, between a mid-sized radial distance of the figure and the larger extent being used to form the boundary, wherever it is not already intersected by the central bubble or the ground.]
:Alien 1: Human 38XT11-B-C54 <!-- 11 or II? --> just bought a new phone with a 10x zoom, so we have to expand our restricted flight zone by 1,800 meters to keep our ship blurry.
:Alien 3: Seriously? Didn't they '''''just''''' upgrade?
:Alien 1: I know, I know...
:[Caption below the panel:]
:The hardest part of being an alien observing Earth is keeping track of what cameras everyone has.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Aliens]]