James Franco says he has proof an alien visited him. Why would it choose an actor who peaked in 2018?

Why does the alien have the stage gait of Justin Bieber at Coachella?

Security cams capture a space alien poking around your house. Do you: A) Call 911? B) Get in your car and speed away?

C) Attempt to make contact? D) Start a TikTok account and spend days posting cryptic videos before teasing a big reveal?

James Franco picked D. After allegations of sexual misconduct T-boned his career in 2018, Mr. Franco became a living historical figure. He vanished from the public eye. That changed last month when he returned to social media with plans for a Hollywood comeback.

And, apparently, his agent is now an extraterrestrial. On Monday, Mr. Franco mystified the internet with a new video. “The day is here,” he says.

“7/13. That’s July 13. Today.

I promised you I was going to reveal something because I found something. It was thrust upon me. I didn’t ask for this.”

That’s what she said. The paranoid spiel sputters on a bit more. Franco claims his account was hacked twice.

He insinuates a sinister cabal is trying to stop him from sharing evidence proving aliens are real. Showtime. Franco stands behind a MacBook and opens the screen.

It plays grainy, black-and-white, suspiciously edited footage of a creature with a large head and bulging eyes in various spots on his property: behind a tree branch, peering into a window, in the kitchen, opening a patio door with a lobster-claw hand. Luckily, the door had a lift handle and not a knob or the alien would be screwed. I’m going out on a limb to declare this footage as fake as the “Alien Autopsy” that aired on Fox in 1995.

Why is the trespassing E.T. always perfectly framed by the camera? Why does it have the stage gait of Justin Bieber at Coachella? Why does it play peek-a-boo above a windowsill like a Teletubby in slow motion?

This alien behaves like an outdoor cat. And with 8 billion people to choose from, why would a space traveller touch down in West Hollywood and loiter in daylight around an actor whose last major role came in 2018? Wouldn’t Carrot Top be a more rewarding Close Encounter?

Maybe it’s an intergalactic cop. Is Franco wanted for sex crimes in Zeta Reticuli? We can debunk this video with Occam’s Razor and the Uncanny Valley.

But what exactly is going on with James Franco? Is this a marketing stunt for a future project? A cry for help?

Performance art? Is his ex-pal Seth Rogen pranking him? Is he desperate for cash and is that why other alleged alien clips are stashed behind a paywall?

I filmed Bigfoot riding a unicycle. You can watch it for $19.99. There was a time when claiming you spotted an alien in your backyard was a career-limiting move.

Times have changed. The UFO stigma is gone. The subject is now taken seriously by politicians and academics.

First-hand sightings are no longer limited to potato farmers. Testimony under oath comes from Navy pilots and retired intelligence officers. Throw in the whistleblowers and UFOs have propelled from punchline to plausible.

Then along comes Franco to reverse-engineer all this hard-fought credibility. And, somewhere, a tireless UAP investigator took a break from filing FOIA requests this week to pray the alien gives Franco an anal probe for making an ass out of disclosure. His videos don’t say, “We are not alone.”

They say, “Please subscribe.” And that’s my minor grievance for today. It took decades for UFOs to earn a place at the adults’ table.

It would be nice if aliens weren’t thrown in a time machine and sent back to a cultural era when even mentioning Area 51 could get you called into a meeting with HR. There’s a difference between a joke that knows it’s a joke and a stunt that’s trying to have it both ways. Franco insists this is neither a joke nor a stunt.

It’s very real. Men in Black associated with crash retrieval or the legacy program could be in his garage with surveillance bugs right now. But the worst part?

Franco’s video isn’t compelling. The guy mailed in his comeback stunt. My daughters could have made a better paranormal video when they were 10.

Where is the storyboarding, narrative, visual hooks, production values? Also, Franco may need to take remedial acting lessons. Between the overwrought mugging and hammy nodding, he is no Fox Mulder.

“People think I’m acting crazy,” he said. “I’m not acting crazy. I saw something.”

Yes. We all saw something this week: an actor desperate to re-enter the showbiz atmosphere. An actor who doesn’t realize campy alien videos are now about a decade too late.

An actor who is lost in space in a marketing galaxy in which a wormhole connects viral and cringe Snooki left a one-word comment on Franco’s post: “STOP.” The truth is out there when you lose Snooki.