When I woke up this morning, turned on my computer, opened up my preferred web browser, and was automatically sent to www.google.com I was surprised to a new Google doodle.  Normally, a Google doodle often celebrates a famous person’s birthday or invention or a national holiday.  Today, though, the Google doodle is a mystery.  It features a UFO abducting the second letter “o” from Google.  If you hover over the logo, text does not reveal what the logo is pointing to, as it always does when it is a doodle.  When you click the logo, it searches the term “unexplained phenomenon.”  You are left with many links to choose from, per usual, but the one that has been gaining the most attention is LiveScience’s Top Ten Unexplained Phenomena.  Number 7 on the list is UFO, the object that is seen in the doodle.

To add to the mystery are people’s thoughts on the matter.  Some believe Google is trying to prove that the Google doodle is a prime advertising spot and that companies could potentially pay Google large sums of money to place their product in the logo.  Others think it is an advertising plug for the sci-fi movie District 9 that is in theatres now.  And of course there are those who believe it actually represents government coverups of alien UFO landings that occured in September 1965 during the “exeter incident.”

Beyond these postulations there have been two discoveries about the meaning behind the doodle.  (1) Today Google posted an encrypted messageon Twitter that reads “1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19”  When decoded it translates to “All your O are belong to us.”  This is a reference to a popular Internet meme “All your base are belong to us” which comes from an old Japanese video game.  (2) If you highlight the logo you can find the link’s URL: http://www.google.com/search?q=unexplained+phenomenon&ct=go_gle&oi=ddle.  Furthermore, the doodle’s URL is http://www.google.com/logos/go_gle.gif.  Notice that in both URLs the second “o” in Google is missing.  This relates back to the UFO abducting the “o” in the doodle and the encrypted message about said “o.”

An unofficial Google blog found a post on Google Korea’s blog that states “this is the first from a series of doodles that provide clues to solve the mystery: who’s celebrated by Google?”  When I conducted my own translation from Korean to English I got this:  September 5, 2009 on Saturday Hello today Google’s Memorial logo, ‘you cannot explain the phenomenon that are associated with either. The two logo is walking out the series (The next time the 15). Whom Does the memorial a logo,? hints, mystery, transparent and fiction that the key word to you. Once we know? I wonder if it is difficult, but, “Aha! “bondservant. : -) Author: Google blog Operation Team Korea.  There is no mention about this in the US Google blog.

All there is to do now is wait and see if a new doodle shows up on the Google homepage tomorrow.  Who will solve the mystery first and figure out this “unexplained phenomenon?”  Sound off in the comments below.

Update: Many websites (including CNET) are putting the nail on the coffin by concluding that this doodle did celebrate an event: the 20th aniversary of the Japanese video game Zero Wing.  This is the game that featured the “All your base are belong to us” quote.  Although this does make sense, I’m still hoping there is more to all of this.  There was no follow-up doodle on Google today.

[Via AC; Googlesystem; GoogleKoreaBlog]