Press release


PR03509 14 September 2005

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No... It's an Alien!


Brits go Bonkers for Alien Action


London - UK - 14 September 2005 - It's official...Britain is being hit by a wave of alien activity. From flying saucers above Big Ben, to UFOs over Brighton Pier, eerie sightings have been captured all over the UK proving there really is life beyond Planet Earth.

The sudden increase in extraterrestrial sightings is a result of the new MSN Space Race competition. Launched by MSN the competition invites people to take a photo of a UFO or alien and publish it on their MSN Space (users' personal online scrap book or blog) explaining where the image came from. If entrants had difficulty in finding a real UFO, the competition allowed for a little technical creativity!

First prize winner, Tony Cordingley from Manchester confessed that alien antics are one of his life long hobbies. He said "I always go to the Brecon Beacons to see what's landed and search for any traces of alien life, so entering this competition was out of this world."

Commenting on the competition, judge Nick Pope said "The combination of the MSN Space Race, judges from the MOD and a star prize to NASA sent alarm bells ringing with conspiracy theorists. Many thought the competition was a sinister government ploy for military intelligence to keep tabs on anyone interested in aliens. In all my life, I have never seen a competition rouse so much suspicion!"

Cristiano Ventura, MSN also said "It's great to see so many entries for the MSN Space Race and we've been amazed with the amount of extraterrestrial activity thats taken place over the summer. Blogs are so popular in the UK at the moment and we're glad to be able to add some alien intrigue to cyber space."


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About MSN.co.uk
MSN is a division of the Microsoft Corporation


MSN is the UKs largest portal attracting over 15.5 million visitors per month in the UK (Nielsen//NetRatings July 2005) and more than 420 million unique users worldwide (MSN Internal Data). Owned by Microsoft, MSN is available in 41 markets and 21 languages.


MSN offers a wide range of Subscription products including Hotmail Plus and MSN Premium with state of the art parental controls, spam filtering software and photo editing tools.


MSN provides a number of world class innovative communication and information services including:


  • MSN Hotmail, the UK's most popular free web-based e-mail service with over 7.9 million users in the UK (Nielsen//NetRatings July 2005) and over 190 million active accounts worldwide (MSN Internal Data)
  • MSN Messenger, the UK's number one instant messaging service on the internet with 8.9 million monthly users (Nielsen//NetRatings July 2005) and over 155 million active users worldwide (MSN Internal data)
  • MSN Search, one of the UKs top search sites with 5.7 million users. (Nielsen//NetRatings July 2005). MSN Search is available in 32 markets worldwide and 14 languages. MSN Toolbar is available in 47 markets with 53 million installed worldwide.



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