Amazon Will Pay You $1 Million For Alien Sightings
Two major companies, Amazon and Ring, are pairing up this October to bring an otherworldly competition to the table just in time for Halloween. Amazon has a $1 million prize for the person who catches the most legit alien sighting on their Ring camera.
As the hype around the existence of aliens is stoked by the U.S. government (like we didn’t already know), Amazon too wants to jump on the bandwagon and stir up some proceeds.
Amazon and Ring are offering prizes for someone who can provide actual footage of aliens, and they even have prizes for fake footage.
You may call it a marketing stunt, but this million-dollar search for extraterrestrial life stands to benefit both companies in a huge way. With the call for video footage of aliens on the table, the immediate thought is that there will be plenty of fakes for the judges to sort through.
However, Amazon has already thought of that, and fake videos of aliens are more than welcome in the competition. There is a $500 Amazon gift card prize for the contestant who delivers the most convincing and scariest fake alien sighting, but you’ll have to do a lot more to earn the million-dollar prize.
To the trained eye, the alien spotting campaign seems like nothing more than a chance to boost the hype around their own companies.
There will be a meteorologist (because aliens don’t like bad weather) and an astrobiologist by the name of Jacob Haqq Misrad on hand for the judging of the submitted content. You’ll also find a strict list of qualifications your alien video will have to meet to be considered for the grand prize spot.
The official rules of the contest state that the winner will have to present Ring doorbell video footage from a device they own that has not been altered in any way. The footage must be one minute or less long (because aliens don’t stick around for long), and provide “scientific evidence” of extraterrestrial life.
The rules say that you’ll need to utilize the scientific evidence you collect to “unequivocally” rule out any earthly explanations for the sighting too.
Their definition of “scientific evidence” states that the video can’t be altered in any way at all, and you have to get footage of an extraterrestrial being “exhibiting unusual, extraordinary, or unexplainable behavior” like weird movement patterns, unique speed, or morphology.
In addition, you’ll need to produce an explanation of why the being in the footage can be identified as an alien using scientific literature. You could also produce an artifact or documentation of extraterrestrial markings to validate your findings.
The rules say that you’ll need to utilize the scientific evidence you collect to “unequivocally” rule out any earthly explanations for the sighting too. Bottom line — actually winning the million dollars will be quite difficult.
To the trained eye, the alien spotting campaign seems like nothing more than a chance to boost the hype around their own companies. Ring will likely sell a few cameras because of the contest, and Amazon will be happy to deliver them.
All of this is on the eve of a heated battle between citizens and the authorities for secured rights to their own footage. There are a range of implications to be considered surrounding this contest, and the least of them is the million-dollar prize.
However, it will be quite interesting to see what the contest drums up in the way of submissions. Whether the footage is real or not, you can be sure that we will see some pretty cool and creepy images along the way.
