Despite What It Looked Like, Aliens Did Not Invade Queens Last Night

I know that this is a clickbait title and it invites a seemingly legitimate “BS” charge, but this was a real event and it was reasonable to believe something profound was happening during its nascent moments. If you’re unaware of what took place last night, congratulations on not being on Twitter, since almost everyone on Twitter also lives in New York City, and they all brought our attention to a scene that looked like it was straight out of Independence Day.

Is this an alien invasion? pic.twitter.com/ED4G94tQYo

— Emily C. Singer (@CahnEmily) December 28, 2018

Fucking gender reveal parties pic.twitter.com/i9u0mpo4wQ

— Clue Heywood (@ClueHeywood) December 28, 2018

#ConEd explosion in #Astoria. Yikes. pic.twitter.com/gZWmlINCXi

— Jackie Papers (@Str8Bear_in_SF) December 28, 2018

Turns out it was a transformer explosion. What you’re looking at is the degradation of America’s infrastructure, which is a pretty depressing outcome to an event that began with seemingly a plurality of New Yorkers genuinely wondering if humanity was about to make first contact. Unless we upgrade our depressingly decrepit infrastructure, events like this will become far more common.

This saga will no-doubt inspire some truly creative conspiracy theories—especially since it seems like the only major affected area was LaGuardia airport—but sorry folks, this ain’t it. Stick to the more reasonable mainstream UFO conspiracy theories, like how Pulitzer Prize winners at the New York Times reported that “metal alloys and other materials” had been “recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.”

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.