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New Yorkers are used to odd sights, but what hundreds of people in the Chelsea
district of Manhattan's West Side saw in the sky yesterday afternoon surprised
even them.
[Related: Recent extra-terrestrial news]
A cluster of silvery, shiny lights floated above. Initial descriptions of the
supposed UFO varied wildly. One person said that it was "an oddly shaped object
full of lights, flying slowly" while others saw (and recorded) three distinct
objects; still others saw nearly a half-dozen entities.
However many there were - and whatever their nature - the city's 311 emergency
line received dozens of calls about the mysterious, "extraordinary" lights.
Alien spacecraft was of course a popular theory, though most New Yorkers seemed
to take the lights in stride. Officials said that the objects were not detected
as any security threat, and FAA spokesman Jim Peters said that the UFO did not
appear on radar: "We re-ran radar to see if there was anything there that we
can't account for but there is nothing in the area."
A closer look at video of the supposed UFO offers clues about its identity. The
lights moved independently like floating objects, not fixed lights on an
aircraft or spacecraft; they moved together in the same direction as the wind.
Furthermore, the objects were not emitting light but instead reflecting
sunlight.
The sightings were very similar to a famous UFO report from New Jersey's Morris
County on the evening of Jan. 5, 2009. An eleven-year-old girl noticed some
bright lights in the night sky. There were three lights grouped together, and
another pair some distance away. The glowing red lights moved silently and
slowly. The case, which I investigated and debunked in this column, was later
revealed to be a hoax. Two pranksters had tied road flares tied to helium
balloons and released them "as a social experiment."
The Manhattan UFOs have all the characteristics of floating mylar balloons. The
balloon explanation fits all the facts, including why the objects did not
appear on radar.
On "The Early Show" anchor Erica Hill reported the story, concluding that law
enforcement officials suspected the objects were balloons, "but so far no
confirmation. As they said on 'The X-Files,' the truth is out there."
Unless the responsible people (whether careless partiers or sly hoaxers) come
forward, it's unlikely there will ever be any "official confirmation" of the
objects' origin. Thus the balloons will remain unidentified flying objects. At
least that's what they want you to think.