Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Look up - is it...could it be...flying cheddar?

Let's say you're walking along minding your own business enjoying everything the summer has to offer when suddenly you spot a colored object flying and/or floating in the sky. The object doesn't emit any sound so an airplane is out. Upon closer examination it appears to be yellow-ish or orange-ish, wedge shaped and the question arises as to whether aliens are becoming more creative and assuming the guise of cheese. There is a simple and much more weird explanation along with essential background information.

Y'see... the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group wanted to be the first to send a piece of cheese into space. You read it right: cheese into space.

Shades of Monty Python!

So on Tuesday, July 28, they launched a 300g wedge of cheddar cheese into space, suspended under a weather balloon. This makes one (at least me) wonder if this could be the real explanation for the UFO landing in Roswell, New Mexico. It really wasn't a UFO but a wedge of cheddar cheese. It's possible!

Furthermore, not your mozzarella or French brie or good, old American cheese but a chunk of British cheddar.

The aim was to send the cheese 18.5 miles into earth's upper atmosphere where they anticipated (and hoped presumably) the cheese would explode and float back to earth via parachute.
If this had worked you can imagine the reaction of people experiencing raining cheese.

As is frequently the case, things didn't work out exactly as planned since the GPS tracking system broke down along the way and the cheesemakers have lost the cheddar chunk. As in gone. Vanished. Pfft.

They're assuming its location is somewhere along a 200-mile corridor in southern England but they're not sure. The launch was made to mark the 40th anniversary of NASA's lunar landings.

This is the same group by the way, that used a webcam to enable people to watch a slab of cheddar age in 2007. Talk about excitement!

Meanwhile if you come accross the cheese, you might want to alert the organizers:
http://www.farmhousecheesemakers.com/

Or just open a bottle of wine and enjoy.

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