The purpose of this note is introducing a method for proving the existence of no rational points on a coarse moduli space $X$ of abelian varieties over a given number field $K$, in cases where the moduli problem is not fine and points in $X(K)$ may not be represented by an abelian variety (with additional structure) admitting a model over the field $K$. This is typically the case when the abelian varieties that are being classified have even dimension. The main idea, inspired on the work of Ellenberg and Skinner on the modularity of $\mathbb{Q}$-curves, is that to a point $P=[A]\in X(K)$ represented by an abelian variety $A/\bar K$ one may still attach a Galois representation of $\operatorname{Gal}(\bar K/K)$ with values in the quotient group $\operatorname{GL}(T_\ell(A))/\operatorname{Aut}(A)$, provided $\operatorname{Aut}(A)$ lies in the centre of $\operatorname{GL}(T_\ell(A))$. We exemplify our method in the cases where $X$ is a Shimura curve over an imaginary quadratic field or an Atkin-Lehner quotient over $\mathbb{Q}$.

In this note we search the parameter space of Horrocks-Mumford quintic threefolds and locate a Calabi-Yau threefold that is modular, in the sense that the $L$-function of its middle-dimensional cohomology is associated with a classical modular form of weight 4 and level 55.

Starting with a 2-dimensional mod $p$ Galois representation, we construct a deformation to a power series ring in infinitely many variables over the $p$-adics. The image of this representation is full in the sense that it contains $\SL_2$ of this power series ring. Furthermore, all ${\mathbb Z}_p$ specializations of this deformation are potentially semistable at $p$.