GTA Online's latest craze is alien gangs in vans delivering surprise beatings

Aliens are terrorising the streets of Los Santos, bursting out of vans to beat players to death with baseball bats, pool cues, and their little green fists then fleeing the scene. This isn't a new GTA Online expansion, it's the hot new craze amongst players. Over the past fortnight, as videos of alien van gangs have spread online, more and more players have bought the silly green alien suit and joined up with other pranksters for old-fashioned beatdowns. I've not yet encountered the visitors myself but am enjoying watching everyone's close encounters.

Here's a typical alien encounter, one early in this latest craze:

That's broadly how it goes. They roll up in a van, leap out, beat you to death, then hop back in the van and peel out.

Maybe they'll pay to hide themselves from the radar, for extra surprise, then stop your car:

Or lurk outside a shop:

Or wait outside the casino, parked inconspicuously by a pile of corpses:

Or catch you waiting for a car delivery, run you down, and punch you in the virtuadick:

Though it seems they're still adjusting to Earth's gravity:

I adore this foolishness. Killing other GTA Online players without provocation is considered a little gauche by some but this is so wonderfully silly. I'd take a hundred alien van beatdown gangs over one single dickhead on a hoverbike zooming around blowing up people running missions. When players grow tired of aliens, I hope some new foolishness will catch on.

Things have kicking off between other species of alien too:

While the craze has exploded in popularity over the past few weeks, this has been going on for a while. Here's 15 aliens in a bus back in August:

In a similar vein, I did enjoy this squad of Minions doling out beatings earlier this year:

(I am sorry for all the videos autoplaying.)

Disclosure: I have pals who work at Rockstar, which I think is a near-inevitably when living in Edinburgh.