The EISCAT European space station in the Arctic Circle will pepper an unfortunate solar system in Ursa Major with a Doritos ad. EISCAT
How little do we think of potential extraterrestrial life? Not much, it seems.
The University of Leicester helped Doritos — yes, THAT Doritos — send a message to a solar system 42 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. What was the communication? A peaceful salutation? A threat? Nope, it’s a Doritos ad. From a University of Leicester press release:
Today Doritos makes history, taking the UK’s first step in communicating with aliens as they broadcast the first ever advert directed toward potential extraterrestrial life.
The transmission is being undertaken as part of the Doritos Broadcast Project, which invited the UK public to create a 30-second video clip that could be beamed out to the universe offering a snap shot of life on Earth to anyone "out there." Sixty-one percent of the UK public believes this is just the start of communication with ET life and that we will enter into regular communication with an alien species at some stage in the future.
Let’s see, of all the messages we could send to life out there, do we want it to concern synthetic-tasting chips bursting with enough chemicals to preserve a corpse for the next 50 years?
Not necessarily putting our best foot forward. Sending a junk food ad to extraterrestrials is like showing up for a job interview dressed like the Dude or taking out a person you are courting on a dinner date to KFC.
Anyway, I suppose kudos should go to Matt Bowron, the winning video director. His creation shows a tribe of Doritos sacrificing a chip to a salsa god. You can see his ad here.
I guess it could be worse. At least our target audience out there won’t receive a commercial featuring Matthew Lesko and his suit that would make Frank Gorshin turn in his grave.