Panic Caused When The Last Earthling (L’ultimo Terrestre) Went Viral in Italy

Steve Barton   |  

Aug 8, 2011

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It’s not just the United States that dabbles in viral marketing. This new promotional technique is everywhere you look nowadays, and we love it. Recently in Italy a strange panic was caused when a notable news anchor recorded a video that was uploaded to YouTube stating that aliens have landed. Read on for details.

Said anchor, Maria Cuffaro, engaged in the broadcast you see below (sorry no English subtitles) as a means to promote Gianni Pacinotti’s film The Last Earthling (L’ultimo Terrestre), which will be playing later this month at the Venice International Film Festival.

Cuffaro’s approach to reporting the event pretty much mimics that of Orson Welles’ 1938 radio play The War of the Worlds. Since its initial upload the video has been viewed over 500,000 times, and the number keeps growing.

In the video TV journalist Maria Cuffaro, who presents prime time bulletins on the state-owned RAI network without the trace of a smile, reports that, following an emergency Cabinet meeting, the government has issued a statement reassuring the country that the aliens do not pose any danger to the population and urging them not to stockpile food or water.

Rather less comfortingly, Cuffaro says there is no intention of interrupting essential services such as gas and electricity “for the moment“.

Still poker-faced, she goes on to tell viewers that the Vatican will soon make public previously secret passages in the Bible that forecast the arrival of extraterrestrials. And she quotes a priest as calling on the faithful to consult a fictitious encyclical, Adventus Marzianus.

RAI asked people to heed Cuffaro’s advice and not be panicked into hoarding — a call that may have been needed given the uncanny realism of the video extract: A broken sentence at the start shows the arrival of creatures from outer space is not the lead item but has been pushed down the running order by injuries to two of the players in the Italian national football squad.

Thanks to The Guardian for the above rundown of the video contents.

Check out the broadcast video along with a few other virals in support of The Last Earthling (L’ultimo Terrestre) below.

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