Social media went nuts on Wednesday night over a line of bright lights that appeared briefly in the sky over San Diego before vanishing.
Reports came from far and wide, with shaky footage uploaded to Youtube and blurry pics shared across Twitter giving us plenty of images, but little information to go on. What are they? We just knew we were going to be disappointed.
And … yes, sure enough, the Navy has since stepped in and ruined all the fun with their mundane explanation.
The excitement began around 8:20 pm, about an hour after the Sun dropped below the horizon.
About a dozen globular lights seemed to hang in the sky just to the west of the coastal southern Californian city.
“They were hovering in place and they were extremely bright,” Pacific Beach resident Uma Aggarwal told the San Diego Union Tribune.
“It was the craziest thing.”
Pretty soon a second set of lights joined the queue, before they all steadily blinked out.
Some thought they looked like floating balls of fire.
What’s happening over the downtown skyline? Looking from La Mesa to downtown. Looks like floating balls of fire? @CBS8 #ballsoffire #whatsthat pic.twitter.com/O8sNaLhfJQ
— Daniel Burns (@DBurnsOfficial) August 30, 2018
Most were content with being confused, if a little freaked out.
Strange lights in #SanDiego again. Last seen in April. Wtf is going on??? pic.twitter.com/IZxQLVTQsD
— Cheyenne; (@CheysReputation) August 30, 2018
Others floated the ‘not of this world’ question, because of course they did.
Strange Lights Above San Diego Spark Speculation of UFO#UFOs #ExtraterrestrialLifehttps://t.co/lRfZWnxmQB
— Project Capture (@Project_Capture) August 30, 2018
Indeed, the truth was out there, and it didn’t take long for it to come out.
The lights were quickly confirmed to be a series of flares dropped from aircraft during a Navy training exercise some 50 kilometres (30 miles) off the coast.
Which put the matter completely to rest for everybody.
Well, ok, not everybody.
Howdy @tomdelonge , what do you make of this? It was in our (San Diego) night sky tonight. The official word is that it was a military flare exercise. I don’t agree. https://t.co/z2sYKfjKVU
— Joe Martin (@jop_ii_ftw) August 30, 2018
Which in some way is the real mystery here – why are some people so keen to believe the Universe is weirder than it already is?