Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for June 07, 2016

Because they’re easiest to remain unidentified fling objects when they’re grainy and blurry and b&w. That and because people tended to look up at the sky rather than down at their phone…

They borrowed the camera from the aliens

Archaeologists sure are going to find a lot of photos layin’ around…….And before the elitist people get going……There is nothing wrong with selfies!…..It’s a new art form. Deal with it, haters!

And how many of those pictures were lenticular clouds?

And Bigfoot.

Varnes:

If I can do it, it ain’t art.

If the phone pix are for your own interest, that’s one thing. When people take pictures of their dinner and post it on Twitter, that’s when I thank God I’m not a subscriber.

People used to look up and the chances of seeing an UFO… the chances of seeing anything… were higher. Nowadays, they’re all looking at the screen of their phones.

I’m kidding. Those pictures are all fakes . But ask anyone coming in with a cellphone in his hand how’s the sky out there… he’ll check the weather app…

The reason that there were proportionally more UFO sightings before smart phones is simple: today people (exactly as depicted in the strip) are moving about with their nose in their phone, or are self-absorbed in some “social media” activity. No one is looking up.

There was a comic strip I saw where aliens had beamed up/ abducted a millinnial who had no idea anything had happened because he was still staring at his phone.Pretty much says it all: going through life clueless about what is actually going on around them in the real world.

Do aliens take selfies?….

They’re actually older than photography. The original selfies were the paintings often referred to as self portraits.

N-G49…. I would say it is the latter (putting ones self into the moment). From my experience of watching a bunch of folks take selfies (my kids, my students, etc) and seeing at least some of these selfies…. it seems most everyone is just trying to be “in the moment”. I have not yet found anyone’s selfie to feel egotistical.

As Arthur C. Clark said, “If you haven’t seen a UFO, you just haven’t been looking.” I have seen quite a few, different shapes, did not match the usual suspects, etc. And I find no evidence that they are extraterrestrial space vehicles. Most people have no idea of the vastness of space and the weakness of energy sources even at the impossible 100% Carnot efficiency at E=MC2. UFOs are aerial phenomenon that one is unable to identify; nothing more or less.

I have seen a few “UFOs”, and by that, I mean Unidentified Flying Objects, not alien spacecraft. Undoubtedly they were either planes, “falling stars”, or satellites, but there was one very unusual one. It was the shape of one of those “Flying Wing” aircraft, but I say that only because all that was visible was a ring of glowing orange lights in that shape. It was moving at the speed that an airplane would, not zipping all over at weird angles… :-)

I used to live in Roswell, NM. One question I was asked frequently was, “Have you ever seen an alien?”

My answer was always, “Yes! The usually wear funny clothes, carry a camera and have out of state tags on their car.”

I’ve taken a lot of hoaxes then! My thumb, the ground, a flower that was too close…

Isn’t that Honey from ‘Doonesbury’ in the first panel?

Aliens quite clearly play a version of evolutionary one-upmanship with camera technology. Like the weed that changes to thwart the herbicide or the bacteria that changes to render the over-used antibiotic useless, aliens have become more elusive as cameras have become more pervasive and sophisticated.

Maybe people were not so self absorbed then and noticed what was happening around them

Yeah, I was skeptical until I saw one.

@netPaul12“Calling anyone “morons” for what they do others don’t approve of is old, very old.”.Yep.Calling others “moron” is a sign of a moron, those morons.Oops, that means I … never mind.

@Varnes“You must be young: “selfies” are as old as photography.”.Many of the great painters painted selfies.It made for a cheap model.

And why aren’t there any now?