Star Trek experiential marketing installation draws a crowd in Ottawa, Canada

The Federation takes over Ottawa! #startrek #starfleetott

If you were in Ottawa this weekend, you may have seen some strange things going on.

First, on Thursday night, this strange video appeared on YouTube. It seemed to show an extraterrestrial object entering the atmosphere over Ottawa:

The video showed up on CTV Ottawa Morning Live the next day, and within the first 24 hours it had earned more than 10,000 views.

CTV continued the coverage on the 6:00 news, with Chris Kitzan, Director General at Canada Aviation and Space Museum, stating:

We have received no reports from any international space agencies regarding missing satellites or other orbiting technology. Observatories have no records of any meteorites or other extraterrestrial debris. It’s as if this thing didn’t exist before this amateur videographer captured it.

The news then said there would be an update the next day.

On Saturday morning, Canada Aviation and Space Museum released a video of its own, with the explanation, “This message was intercepted and partly decoded by the @SciTechMuseum telecomm lab.” This was also covered on the TV news.

At the same time, mysterious debris started showing up in locations around Ottawa, such as the Byward Market, Landsdowne, and even Canada Agriculture and Food Museum.

Screen Shot 2016-04-18 at 10.28.09 AM

Strangers in Starfleet uniforms appeared to be guarding and analyzing the crash scene. Hundreds of Ottawans stopped and stared, took photos, and shared the experience.

starfleetott nacelle group

More courageous passers-by who engaged with the security officers were given a special card:

starfleetott card

As well, posters started appearing downtown in English, French, and Klingon:

starfleetott star trek poster

The URL, joinstarfleetacademy.ca, leads to a countdown site for Star Trek: The Starfleet Academy Experience. It’s a world premiere experience coming to Canada Aviation and Space Museum in May.

More on that soon. Keep hailing frequencies open!

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