Blackout

from Heroes by David Bowie (1977):

Oh you, you walk on past
Your lips cut a smile on your face
Your scalding face
To the cage, to the cage

Too, too high a price
To drink rotting wine from your hands
Your fearful hands
Get me to a doctor's I've been told
Someone's back in town the chips are down
I just cut and blackout
I'm under Japanese influence
And my honour's at stake

The weather's grim, ice on the cages
Me, I'm Robin Hood and I puff on my cigarette
Panthers are steaming, stalking, screaming

If you don't stay tonight
I will take that plane tonight
I've nothing to lose, nothing to gain
I'll kiss you in the rain
Kiss you in the rain
Kiss you in the rain
In the rain
Get me to the doctor

Get me off the streets (get some direction)
Get me on my feet (get some direction)
Hot air gets me into a blackout
Oh, get me off the streets
Get some protection
Oh get me on my feet (wo wo)

While the streets block off
Getting some skin exposure to the blackout (get some protection)
Get me on my feet (get some direction, wo-ooh!)
Oh get me on my feet
Get me off the streets (get some protection)
Get a second
Get wo wo
Yeah
Get a second? breath on advice?
And a second blow
Blackout

 

Blackouts

from The UFO Encyclopedia by Margaret Sachs (1980):

BLACKOUTS, the extinguishing of all lights in large areas and entire cities due to power failures. UFOs have frequently been seen hovering near power facilities, sometimes prior to or during blackouts. The highest number of such incidents occurred in the late 1950s and the mid-1960s. The most notorious case was the great northeastern blackout of 1965. During the evening rush hour period of November 9th, thirty million people were plunged into blackness that did not end until the following morning. The area affected covered 80,000 square miles and included parts of eight northeastern U.S. states and most of Canada's Ontario. However, even in New York City where thousands of people were trapped in subway trains and high-rise elevators, panic did not set in.

Utility experts could offer no explanation as to what had touched off the extraordinary failure of the huge Canadian-U.S. Eastern interconnective power grid. In previous years, local blackouts had been prevented from spreading by an extensive safeguard system. Yet on November 9, 1965, a strange surge of electricity had swept unchecked through the grid system, tripping scores of circuit breakers.

During the week following the event, reports of UFO sightings before and during the blackout came in from witnesses in New York City, Greater New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and all over New England. Of particular interest was the report that immediately prior to the blackout a pilot had seen a round, glowing object near the Northern Hemisphere's largest power plant at Niagara Falls. Another spherical UFO, seen at the beginning of the blackout, was hovering over the Clay power substation in Syracuse, New York.

Since electromagnetic effects seem to be an established characteristic of UFOs, some UFOlogists are convinced that the great northeastern blackout was the result of an extremely powerful surge of electromagnetic energy from one or more UFOs, overloading the system so quickly that the safety devices did not have time to operate. Some researchers believe this effect to be accidental. Others have suggested that such blackouts may be tests conducted by alien intelligences in preparation for an invasion. If this be the case, it might be of some relevance that the 1965 blackout occurred in the most heavily populated, most power-dependent region in the Western Hemisphere...