Google UFO Doodle Explained

By Nancy Atkinson - September 7, 2009 at 12:36 PM UTC | Site News
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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.

Source:

CNET

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com