Categories: Astronomy

Google UFO Doodle Explained

The intertoobs have been abuzz with Google’s seemingly unexplained latest doodle: A UFO beaming up one of Google’s “O”s. The plot thickened when Google’s Twitter account Tweeted the following: “1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19.” What did it all mean? Was Google giving credence to UFO believers? Or referring to the wife of Japan’s new Prime Minister for her belief that she traveled to Venus on a UFO? Or perhaps honoring Voyager 1’s launch (Sept. 5, 1977) or space shuttle Discovery’s first landing on Sept. 5, 1984? None of the above, it turns out.

Google was paying homage to the 20th anniversary of 1980s Japanese video game, Zero Wing. According to CNET, apparently a villan from the game named Cats makes this somewhat famous declaration at the beginning of Zero Wing: “How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us.”

When you take all the numbers in the Google tweet and turn them into the corresponding letters of the alphabet, you get: “All your O are belong to us.”

The world can rest now. Google’s search page is now back to normal. And the Google techies are back to playing video games.

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Source: CNET

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/