Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s — who knows what…
WTOP has been reporting on the sky sightings that have been taking place in New Jersey and now the DMV. The story has made national news. Even a local politician posted a video which I can tell you with 100% certainty is the constellation of Orion, the planet Jupiter and the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius.
People who are not familiar with the night sky and start looking up because of the ongoing “Drone Flap” — my term for what is going on — will see objects in the sky, some quite bright, that they aren’t familiar with. To them it is unidentified.
Whatever we see in the sky comes down to most likely being from one or more of the following categories:
- Astronomical — stars, bright planets, aurora, noctilucent clouds; meteors, fireballs, satellites (especially strings of Starlink satellites moving silently across the sky), comets, rocket launches, de-orbiting space junk or reentering spacecraft;
- Aeronautical — aircraft of any type, contrails, drones;
- Meteorological — weather phenomena;
- Wildlife — Birds or other flying wildlife, including insects;
- Geological — volcanic events, gaseous emissions;
- Unknown — It cannot be identified.
When I was growing up in Southern California in the 1960s, the Nation had “UFO Flaps” which are a concentrated sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in a particular area over a period of time.
D.C. had a very famous UFO Flap that took place in the nation’s capital in the 1950s.
In the 21st century, UFOs have now morphed into UAPs — Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena — which NASA and the DoD are actively investigating.
With this current “Drone Flap,” we have been conditioned by the Chinese balloon overflights of our airspace and social media sprouting associated conspiracy theories and/or misinformation.
Personally, from the footage I have seen broadcast, there is little doubt these are, in fact, drones. As to their purpose, I have no idea. But one point I would like to share with you is that the drones imaged have been clearly illuminated so that they are plainly visible.
I have had friends contact me for my input as they have been concerned by these drones and, in one case, actually seeing them in their New Jersey neighborhood.
We are conditioned to want answers in an instant and get those answers on the internet. I would suggest that our collective patience and careful checking of our sources of information will ultimately lead to answers.
Follow Greg Redfern on Facebook, BlueSky and his daily blog to keep up with the latest news in astronomy and space exploration.
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