Note: This story was updated at 7:47 p.m. to correct the spelling of Tory Johnston's last name.
With new revelations about UFOs and claims before Congress this summer that the government may possess otherworldly corpses, the potential of alien beings on Earth is gaining more attention.
And Chattanooga Bakery, which has been making MoonPies since 1917, sees such extraterrestrials as a potential market — or at least a rich source of publicity to gain more human attention to the snack cake maker.
Last week, Chattanooga Bakery launched an advertising campaign to purportedly sell its products to alien beings. The ad campaign includes MoonPie promotions using the supposed language and sounds of extraterrestrials on billboards, airplane banners, light shows and videos to attract alien attention.
"As our name suggests, we're all about everything out of this world, so when we heard all this talk about aliens being out there, we decided to go after that potential market," Tory Johnston, vice president and sales manager for MoonPie, said in a Zoom interview. "We're a family business, and we want to be familial and welcoming to others, so if these aliens are out there, we want to reach out to them first and have them enjoy our product. We're all about Southern hospitality."
Of course, the MoonPie marketers are hoping their ad campaign will also get the attention of a lot of curious humans and, in the process, spur more earthly brand awareness and sales of the round, marshmallow treats.
Chattanooga Bakery boosted sales with another out-of-this-world ad campaign promoting MoonPies as a snack food for the solar eclipse in 2017, when the moon blocked out sunlight over much of America. The celestial event, which Chattanooga Bakery used to promote MoonPies on a variety of media platforms, lit up MoonPie sales and outstripped Chattanooga Bakery's ability for the first time to meet all of the demand.
"That was our biggest sales month in the history of our company," Johnston said.
In 2018, Chattanooga Bakery jokingly urged people interested in knowing about the moon to contact the company when NASA briefly limited its operations during the federal government shutdown.
In its latest out-of-this-world idea, Chattanooga Bakery launched a website Tuesday supposedly designed for aliens — to get alien influencers to spread the word about MoonPies. Billed as "The MoonPie Alien Acquisition," the campaign has featured sign displays, light shows and audio messages.
Chattanooga Bakery has employed the Knoxville advertising agency Tombras in the effort, which supposedly advertises the product in a language aliens might understand.
(READ MORE: How Chattanooga Bakery was built to last)
In Times Square in New York City, a multistory marquee display briefly proclaimed, in that language, "Hot deal on MoonPies! Just 99 cents."
On a truck driven by the White House, a sign with a giant MoonPie proclaimed, again in the so-called extraterrestrial language, that "Non-human biological material should try MoonPies."
In Roswell, New Mexico, where many believe alien beings once landed, another MoonPie billboard urged the extraterrestrial beings to "Come Back! We have strawberry MoonPies Now."
On the Atlantic Ocean, a triple-decker barge displayed a sign that said "MoonPies close by! Nearest retailer less than one ocean away."
The sites for the MoonPie promotions have all been where there have been reported alien sightings. Dooley Tombras, president of Tombras, said the campaign capitalizes on the growing attention and evidence about alien beings possibly visiting planet Earth.
In July, a military whistleblower told a congressional hearing that the U.S. likely has been aware of "nonhuman" activity since the 1930s. Retired Maj. David Grusch, who served for 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, appeared before the House Oversight Committee about the presence of UAPs — or "unidentified aerial phenomena," which is the official term the U.S. government uses instead of UFOs.
The Pentagon denied many of Grusch's claims, but the debate over UFOs and UAPs has intensified and spurred more interest in extraterrestrial activity, which the MoonPie marketers saw as an opportunity.
(READ MORE: Witness says UFO sightings are "routine")
"Given all that has been in the news, we saw this as a real opportunity," Tombras said.
Tombras said he consulted with a number of experts, including Daniel Oberhaus, who wrote a book called "Extraterrestrial Languages," including discussion of symbols that have been theorized as comprehensible by aliens, including Astraglossa and Lincos.
The symbols and sounds may not be understood by humans, but the MoonPie brand remains prominent, and the unusual campaign is already attracting public and media attention that could aid the century-old brand in reaching some new earthly customers, Tombras said.
Chattanooga Bakery, which began in 1902, introduced the first MoonPies in 1917. When a Kentucky coal miner asked for a snack "as big as the moon," Chattanooga Bakery came up with the treat known as MoonPie that was filling, fit in a lunch pail and was popular among coal miners and other workers.
Do aliens also have a sweet tooth? Extraterrestrial experts interviewed for the campaign say they aren't sure. But they might.
"We're constantly looking at ways we can take this 107-year-old brand favorite and find new consumer groups," Johnston said. "When we heard the congressional hearings and all these people saying that there are definitely aliens, we knew we had to try to engage in potentially new MoonPie lovers in the universe."
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.