The Bayside Marketplace "Aliens", Miami

Bayside Marketplace sits on the Miami waterfront at 401 Biscayne Blvd. It is a two-story, open-air mall downtown, about 5 miles from South Beach. On Monday, 1 January 2024, it became the setting for one of the strangest viral rumours of the year.

At about 8:30 p.m., the 911 calls began. Callers reported gunshots. What they had heard, police later said, was "50 or so juveniles shooting fireworks at people, with some looting also occurring." Witnesses told Local 10 that teens were throwing fireworks at each other and into the air.

The Miami Police Department issued a "City-wide 3" alert. Every active officer was sent. Believing they faced an active shooter, officers deployed with high-powered rifles. About 60 police vehicles reached the scene, and about six blocks of Biscayne Boulevard were shut. Four juveniles, aged 14, 15, 15 and 16, were arrested. The roads reopened at 11:30 p.m.

By then, the cameras were rolling. People filmed the police response from apartment windows and from above. The footage was grainy, distant and dark. In it, some viewers saw something else.

Posts described "7- to 10-feet tall creatures and beings running around" and attacking people. They were "gray-silver colored," "very tall," "blending into the crowd." Spanish-language posts spoke of shadows over three metres tall, and of a 10-foot extraterrestrial floating. One Instagram clip showed a shadowy figure moving across the screen as the person filming said: "We got it y'all...Y'all see it? I know you all see it." Others claimed kids had opened a portal for alien creatures. That airports had closed. That the power had failed. That black military choppers had arrived.

On 5 January, the Miami Police Department posted a video. Spokesperson Officer Rafael Horta took the rumour head on. "There is now video going viral of 8- to 10-foot aliens walking around Bayside. It is just a person walking with a shadow." Public information officer Michael Vega was blunter: "There were no aliens. No airports were closed. Nothing is being withheld from the public. LOL."

To TMZ, police explained the image itself: "What is seen in this clip is the shadow of someone walking. If you look at the bottom of the shadow, you can see the person. No creature."

Fact-checkers agreed. PolitiFact rated the claims Pants on Fire. USA Today rated them False, as did Chequeado. Vera Files in the Philippines and Geopop in Italy also debunked them. Two of the most dramatic clips turned out to have nothing to do with Miami. A "portal" video came from a May 2023 TikTok said to show a Chinese metro station. Lead Stories called it "an artistic creation." An "exploding orb" clip also dated to May 2023.

"Miami Mall" and "Aliens en Miami" trended on X. William Shatner posted: "So apparently space aliens visited a mall in Miami? 😳🤨🙄" Know Your Meme catalogued the "Miami Mall Aliens Rumor," and the Sinisterhood podcast covered it at length. A fan wiki later added three thin figures with elongated limbs, with no source behind them. No named eyewitness ever came forward. What remains is a study in how a shadow, a siren and a phone camera can become a legend in a single night.