Under the category of “encroaching chaos,” I have now noticed aliens starting to appear in advertisements.

The strange thing is that the ad copy never makes an explicit connection or offers an explanation for why the alien is there. At least, not as far as I can tell. These are, of course, ads of the “intrusive unwanted video” type, so I am not finishing watching them.

I’ve seen two.

Women (played by a real actress) says: “I used to XYZ. Then everything changed.”

Then, up behind her pops an AI alien with disturbingly sexy biceps. He leers at the camera for a second.

Then, the scene changes and it’s someone talking about the product. The alien is never mentioned.

Second one:

We get a line about the presenting problem that the product is supposed to solve. This is illustrated by an AI alien (female this time — I think) waking up with a gasp in bed, wearing a nightgown.

Then, the scene changes and it’s a normal actor talking about the product. Again no explanation of the alien is given.

So I just have one question.

What the hell is going on here?

There is no conceivable way that sticking a random AI alien into an ad would make the viewer more likely to buy the product. The alien is not in there as a joke or as part of a clever bit of writing. It bears no relation to the product, and in fact strikes a jarring note.

There is not even any way the presence of a random alien would make the viewer want to finish the ad. It is so visually and narratively repellant that it makes the viewer regret they could not skip the ad sooner, before their eyeballs were assaulted in this way.

And keep in mind, this is coming from a person who’s not averse to watching fiction or documentaries about aliens. As long as it’s well-made. As long as it MAKES SOME KIND OF SENSE.

It’s not the alien itself I object to. It’s the intentional irrelevance of the alien. Plus, of course, the leering.

I really do suspect a deep dark conspiracy here. This is an intentional assault on the mind of the public. The purpose is to normalize … something. Least bad case scenario, these ads are seeking to normalize the sight of aliens being subbed in for humans in otherwise normal ads; appearing in human situations; and (I shudder to write it) leering at humans.

Even worse case scenario, the ads are seeking to normalize things not making sense. When something makes this little sense, and goes by so quickly, the mind’s tendency is to skip over it, forget it, and certainly not make a big fuss or push back.

Or, on the third level of hell, these ads are not merely trying to normalize things “not” making sense, but instead, they represent a species of aggressive, expansionist nonsense. They are out to level the cities in the viewer’s brain, a little bit more with every viewing of what can only be called anti-sense.

It’s similar to the scene in That Hideous Strength, where Mark’s sometime mentor, now jailor, Frost, puts Mark in “The Objectivity Room.” This room is a brainwashing tool that is supposed to remove all “bias” from Mark and allow him to see the world “objectively.”

The room is an example of subtle, but aggressive, nonsense. The Gothic point over the door is not quite centered. The corners of the room are not quite square. The dots on the ceiling almost make a pattern — but they don’t. The paintings on the walls are absurdist. The room is anti-comfort, anti-human, anti-stuff-created-by-God.

To complete the training, Frost shows up every day and asks Mark to do a random task that is obviously arbitrary.

When Mark finally resists him, Frost can’t think of anything to say. It’s not that he cannot choose what to say from several possible alternatives; he cannot think of any words. He has given his mind to the Nonsense for so long that it is now taken over by … nothing. And that’s scary.

What do you guys think? Have you noticed these alien ads? Do you have any tips for dealing with them?