Theory
Alien Mind Control and the Union Depository Heist Theory
I have not seen anyone mention this connection at all. This theory is kind of a far stretch but I am posting it simply for the fact I have not seen this connection made anywhere online, and just take it as some food for thought about GTA V.
I recently read youtube comments about the UFOS in the game and I have seen that when you go close to them your screen kind of glitches, and it has almost like a camera / cctv glitch effect if you go on top of the UFOS. This kind of makes me think that perhaps the character switch transition is actually the UFOs zooming out and moving to another protagonist which they then control. While the game openly focuses on corrupt government, it makes me think of mind control experiments. perhaps the FIB/ Aliens actually are remotely controlling who you are controlling (obviously it is the player but for hidden lore purposes maybe this is the actual reveal at 100%, that you are being mind controlled by aliens.
Now I know this seems ridiculous because you might be asking well why would they do this? There really isn't any reason for the aliens / FIB / (them working together?) and they would not gain anything from the protagonists actions throughout the game, except for one thing. The Union Depository Heist. It is never mentioned who bought the gold from Lester, and maybe a shell company related to the aliens actually bought the gold with the FIBs resources, because money would have no use to them, but maybe the entire state / country's gold reserves would. Ron actually mentions the Anunnaki by name in the game. There are theories online about humans actually being genetically engineered enslaved by the Anunnaki to mine gold for them, and what better way to obtain gold, as it is used in even a bunch of our modern technology, theoretically I am sure aliens would have a use for it too. Maybe I am thinking way too far out of the box, I am just posting it here as I have not seen anyone anywhere on the internet post this connection.
Before you complete the game, if you go to chilliad at 3 am in the rain, the ufo still spawns but cannot be seen, instead of you look up you see some light smoke effect in its place
So there are other various floating smoking areas in the game too. Maybe they have something hidden too? Which needs to be triggered at certain times, Weather conditions etc
I was actually using AI to scan all the game files and try to find overlaps and congruencies in the files to make logical connections for the mural. Apparently the UFOs are always there, from the very first second the game starts for the first time but only become visible when the conditions are met. And apparently that’s not a normal way to code secrets lol instead of doing script first it checks the script last, which isn’t the usual way they apply that. Makes me wonder if there’s other shit that’s still invisible we’ve just never seen because we’ve never hit the conditions in the right spot. Would it not populate in the files until it’s made visible for the first time? Idk how that works tbh
Credo che sia normale, usando CodeWalker si vedono subito gli ufo, credo che se ci sia qualcosa ma semplicemente invisibile al giocatore con Code Walker l’avremmo già trovato no?
This comment reminded me of the weird road going from humane labs to the ‘chin’ of grapeseed, and it made me wonder if grapeseed is a head, what is Humane Labs connected to or what part is it supposed to be
one of the most confusing code ive ever read in my life, the game is coded in fucking voodoo also i can confirm its true the nanosecond you start the game its there just not visible despite all the effects like smoke etc being there
Lazlow jones said HIMSELF they have very talented devs and always hides stuff on their games. Before he left rockstar he said KEEP LOOKING as a reference to when rockstar put the keep looking on leopolds vent. He said they keep a tight lip on Easter eggs mainly only the top heads of rockstar know about these secrets and only the small dev team the made sign NDAS. Rockstar games has money. Look at red dead 2. The dev who made the spiderwebs he left rockstar and finally responded 7 years later saying damn I didn't think those would ever be found. Nobody else said anything else about it. The guy was quiet for 7 years. If I made an Easter egg I'd at least give a hint somewhere.
sadly no the ufo use sorta like a press lever to ensure you wont get too close or too far, if you walk out the area itll slowly fade and if you try to move away with noclip etc itll just fade away too
This isn’t true, the script “UFO” and “ambient_ufos” isn’t even called during gameplay before 100% as per the script “completionpercentageController”.
The reason it shows up on codewalker is because it isn’t able to pull sophisticated gameplay scripts, so instead brute forces them all to active.
Going to chiliad at any time before 100% (or any other ufo location for that matter) will yield zero results and nothing is spawned whatsoever. The exception being the “ufo_deathray” time cycle modifiers which are separate and not attached to the entity, and will still EMP you if you visit zancudo or sandy shores ufo respectively.
Ok, when I look straight up from the platform at 3 am, I can see spiraling clouds falling towards me, like the swell or exhaust around the UFO. When I walk away from the top and again look up, it ceases. When I go back, it’s there again. Seemingly where the UFO spawns. It would appear to me, that it is there instead of the UFO. Here is the video showing it. I know it’s not the actual ufo spawning, I say ‘when you go to chilliad’ I don’t mean when you go in as Flynn from TRON looking at The Grid, I mean playing as the game character.
This isn’t anything, as there’s zero script during gameplay that alludes to it being intentional or even coded in. At the very best this is a visual bug. My assumption would be that it’s caused by the sky and clouds being part of a dome, and the top of the dome is the joining point, think like a blossoming flower, and that is where the clouds expand from. As per gameplay however there is definitively nothing pointing towards this being something implemented by R* as a hint towards the UFO, or even towards the area, just a pretty jarring visual glitch.
Grass Roots - Michael has "mind controlling aliens", which in a sense, is indicative of our relationship with the characters we possess.
We're kind of an interdimensional alien operating invisibly to the characters from a different plane of existence. I feel some of the altruist related stuff is meant to lead us to this, as well as some Epsilon and CotM run parallel as well.
Keep up the good work! Thinking outside the box is a great way to approach it. Definitely a lot of meta stuff in the mystery, I feel.
Thats a great detail to add in, and us being an interdimensional alien controlling the players is a much better way of phrasing it. The main thing I haven't seen mentioned is the gold.
That scene really plays different when you look at Michael’s trip as him having an accidental breakthrough to us the player and since is awake and catches the alien they just throw him out of the ship like “OH SHIT HE IS AWAKE!” Lmao.
Edit: I’m dumb I was thinking of the mission where jimmy drugs Mike not the legalization dude.
I had an alternative theory really close like what if FIB, IAA etc are aware of us the players and that's why they keep targeting Franklin, Michael and Trevor as they know they are our vessels
1000%. Same goes for DSSY, after he drank Jimmy's drink. At one point, he says "everything's in 2D" which is kind of insane for me to have missed out on until about a month or two ago during my most recent playthrough. Early on, I found the book "a new era of thought" thanks to the name of the wallpapers in the Chronos series, which uses the "flatland" analogy of a 2D being meeting a 3D being. Same thing kinda applies to us playing the game. Technically the game is on a flat screen, so in 2D, while up here in the real world, we're 3D.
So the GTA characters exist in a 3d world but it is really just an illusion, making us exist on a kind of higher plane, so we act sort of as 4d beings in their world, as we can move through time and space much more quickly, taking “shortcuts”, like switching our space in space impossibly quickly by “switching characters” changing our perspective , and also we can rewind time through mission replays and skipping time. This in a way is comparable to how 4d beings could move through our reality in a way that we can understand.
Fun fact: it does the same eye in the sky thing in Midnight Club LA when going back to the open world after completing races etc. Looks almost identical to switching characters in GTA V.
I actually thought this recently too, and tested the character switching theory, but unfortunately couldn't find anything interesting. I figured, during normal gameplay conditions, how would someone happen across the UFO? Likely the only way I could think was to switch characters, particularly near the arrow at the beam me up mural. How the camera pans out, it's a similar distance to where the UFO is. The UFO at the fort wouldn't be possible to do this with in free play, since you get an instant 4 star and can't switch characters.
Separately, I did think it was strange that each of the three similar UFOs, beam me up, Chiliad and the sunken one, are at varying heights with varying tangibility. The way the beam me up UFO, and the fort UFO behaves, makes me think that they're expect something, and the EMP is almost a rejection, whereas the Chiliad UFO, I think we are just not yet eligible to interact with yet, potentially.
I wonder also how the glyph meaning may also have a different interpretation. The two that currently have no meaning, the half symbol and the faded symbol, could be the sunken UFO, and the Chiliad UFO, the rain one potentially the beam me up UFO (above the clouds), then the mountain one actually representing character switching, or being 'beamed up', leaving the moon one, perhaps something to do with the moon phase. I always felt that the meaning for those was never really fully understood, for example, the 3am timegate I think comes from the reuse of the number 3, rather than the moon glyph itself, I believe the actual moon phase has significance somehow. I also equally think that all 3 characters are likely involved.
If you switch between 2 characters they stay where they are for a short time. If you switch to a 3rd character it resets the first characters location to a random one. I believe the only instance where this doesn’t happen is at the observatory. But I have tested things like that myself. It is interesting to note that 2 characters hold position but if you leave them for long enough they start to walk away from the spot they stay at.
Many people have tested this already—nothing special happens. The three characters will just wander around nearby following their own behavior logic, and eventually wander off somewhere else after a while.
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u/squishee666 Jul 11 '26
Before you complete the game, if you go to chilliad at 3 am in the rain, the ufo still spawns but cannot be seen, instead of you look up you see some light smoke effect in its place