UFOS, Spy Balloons & Teapots
March 2023
The world is no stranger to UFOs… From right back in 1440 BC when the scribe of the Pharaoh Thutmose III said he saw “fiery discs” floating over the skies, to the more famous Roswell incident in 1957 and the more recent sightings in Wales, where a police helicopter was almost hit by a UFO, before it tried to pursue it.
There’s no shortage of UFO sightings throughout history, and the rumours around what goes on in Area 51 only add fuel to the fire. UFO fanatics all over the world spend their days staring at the skies and investigating any potential sightings, desperately trying to prove that aliens do exist.
In the past, before humans could create flying machines and technology progressed to the sci-fi levels that we have today, there was little to explain UFOs. If you saw something floating in the sky, it was hard to explain. Nowadays, that’s no longer the case. From drones and fighter jets to missile-launching battery-powered quadcopters, there’s tons of flying machines that could be mistaken for a UFO. And that’s exactly what happened recently in South Carolina.
UFO enthusiasts were disappointed to discover that there was no alien spaceship floating in the skies above them, it was instead a 60-metre-tall Chinese surveillance balloon. The Americans say it was a spy balloon and China insists it was a weather balloon that veered off course. The balloon was shot down and with it fell the hopes of all the UFO enthusiasts too. Who was right? We’ll never know… But as the balloon was over US airspace it was their call. And that’s how it works with freight too.
When you’re shipping goods around the world it’s essential that you know exactly what’s inside your containers, and that you communicate that accurately on your paperwork. It might be tempting to “forget” to list something that would otherwise make your freight more complicated, but this is a big mistake. The rules are there for a reason. You could put the whole ship at risk of fire, like the Cosco Pacific that I wrote about back in 2020…
Some genius had failed to declare that their container was packed full of lithium-ion batteries, instead labeling it as “spare parts”. All was going well until one of the containers on board spontaneously combusted, incinerating itself, destroying its neighbour and damaging several other containers all around it. Your cargo could be destroyed.
Like the inappropriate teapots that I mentioned last week. They were covered in, shall we say questionable images, and therefore forbidden – they were smashed up and disposed of. You could even be arrested, fined or even imprisoned in some circumstances!
That’s why it’s so important to work with a freight forwarding company that knows what they’re doing. Someone who knows all the rules and regulations and can help ensure that your cargo is legal, packaged and declared accurately.
So back to the UFOs – what do you think? Are aliens coming to visit? Or are UFOs just a thing of fairy tales and movies?