The idiot was Zack Snyder, not the actual author of Watchmen, Alan Moor.

In the comics, vv this vv is what Ozymandias manufactured to trick the world into peaceful deescalation. A supposed alien for all of humanity to unite against.

But that’s too cartoony for Snyder, so he changed it to something more “realistic”, ironically undermining the believability of the story.