Chinese Lanterns Could Explain Some But Not All Orange UFO Reports
For the second July 4th in a row, massive numbers of sightings of Orange Ball of Light UFOs have been reported. Sightings from Beatrice, New England to Long Beach, California, and just about everywhere in between.
Last year, we asked What Did People See In The Sky July 4th 2009? and briefly discussed the possibility of orange Chinese Lanterns being the source of some of the reports and I suggested that the Orange Light UFOs are actually bioluminescent pterodactyls, a theory that didn’t really catch on.
July 3rd 2010 picked up where we left off last year, with a burst of ORBL sigthings with many more on July 4th.
We received this email from a reader a day after he submitted a report of ORBLs over Connecticut
on July 3rd 2010.
I posted last night the sighting of orange light formation in the area of Lime Rock CT.
Today, still intrigued by what we witnessed last night, I asked a few people who live around us if they had seen the same orange light after the fireworks. And yes, a few had seen them, but did not know what it was.Then, I finally ran into someone who had an explanation.
Yes – Chinese Lanterns. Big ones! 3 to 4 ft tall ones…..orange ones!
This person had found one in a field after it had fallen. You can see videos on Youtube about Chinese Lantern.
These Chinese Lanterns looked like the orange we saw last night.
It makes sense. The lantern would first take off in one large group – would spread out with the wind – some hovering, then fading as the flame within them would burn out and disappear into the night.
It is also not a coincidence that these sightings would appear on New Year’s eve or celebration such as the 4th of July. It is just another form of Fireworks.
We were strangely disappointed when we got an explanation to our mystery, as after reading similar sighting online, we were so excited to have finally witnessed what may have been the presence of UFO. But, once we were told by this person they found a large Chinese lantern after it burned out, we unfortunately came to the conclusion that these orange lights were not related to UFO but simply Chinese Lanterns.
We will continue to scan the sky for real sightings. I hope this helps others understanding what they may have seen.
Chinese Lanterns could explain some but not all July 4th 2010 Orange UFO reports.
One of the several reports from Long Beach, CA reported “a disked shape to me with orange in the sides and it was rotating. It had a light on the top that flickered on and off.”
That doesn’t sound like a Chinese Lantern.
Other reports have the lights moving in formations that could be Chinese Lanterns bound together.
Too weird!!!
We’re located in North Alabama, about 75 miles North of Nashville, Tn.
My 9 yr old son, who has an over-active imagination saw the same Orange glowing ball floating high in the sky over our neighbors home around 9 pm on July 4, 2010. He said, “It floated in the sky the way a jelly fish would float in the ocean. I said, “lots of our neighbors are shooting fire works, and I’m sure thats what you saw”, but he wasn’t hearing it! He knew it was no fireworks display. I blew it off, and didn’t think another thing about it, until my neighbor contacted me this morning, asking if I had seen the Orange floating object, in the sky lastnight. Again, too weird! I’m no “alien chaser”, but I must admit, I’ve wondered, “what else is out there?” It’s probably best, we don’t know, what all has been kept..hidden and/or covered up! If we knew “the truth”, many would panic! Do we really want to know, whats out there, & if there is life beyond our planet, what do they already know about us?!?! I’m not sure I want to know, but it is VERY interesting…Freaky, yet, interesting!
This is TOO freaky! Last night around 9:30-10pm.. my mom, husband and I sat out watching fireworks, and made a comment about the large orange sphere in the sky… that could have resembled a helicopter/airplane type of thing. After watching it for several minutes going back and forth through the sky, we really couldn’t figure out what that ‘thing’ was. We had contemplated it may have been a news helicopter filming the baseball stadium, but couldnt explain why the orange light was SO bright. We kept commenting that it was a UFO.. and after about 9 minutes, we saw it come closer, then all of a sudden it had disappeared into thin air. After talking to my aunt who lives in Nashville, TN, she explained the orange UFO type thing that she saw last night, and explained it to a T, WITHOUT US EVER MENTIONING A WORD ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCE. We live in Fort Mill, SC (about 10 minutes outside of Charlotte, NC) Whatever it was, it was oddly close and earily resembled some other sort of life form… tooo wierd!
yeah i saw them too hover over springfield mass right before the fireworks downtown around 930…sorry no photos, but they were there.
Two of us saw 5 orange lights going left to right very slow then two faded and the other 3 just stayed in place then just faded out too. We at first thought choppers but there was no sound. It was around midnight over Buffalo hill village about 45 min to an hour after fireworks. Right near Bennington and Sheldon NY about 25 min out of Buffalo NY.
In response to the lantern theory. I dont know if any of you have checked youtube to see the home video from Moscow on July 3rd. The object in the sky over Moscow is the exact “something” that we saw, color, shape etc….. Keeping in mind that they do not celebrate the forth of July and there is no reason for lanterns to be floating around. I have been researching ever since the other night and I am still convinced that I have seen UFOs.
I agree with all the above…it is too freaky..but funny to watch people that have never seen one..We were out on our deck watching the 4th of july fireworks like everyone else in the neighbor hood of shelby twp, Mi..when all of a sudden there were orange lights floating in the sky..all 12 of them in a row..my company thought we were being invaded by ufo’s…it was quite funny to watch them and then try to explain what they we’re watching was none only but a chinese lantern someone off in the distance were sending into the night sky..So thank you Shelby twp residents for putting on a nice fireworks show and for making us laugh so hard to the company that had no clue..
I live in Birmingham, AL and last night (July 7th, 2010) my sister and I were sitting out on the backporch around 10pm CST. Seemingly out of no where, a line of three bright orange lights came across the sky, coming from the north. A few more, I’d say a total of 10-12, glided across the sky in no particular formation. All of them came from essentially the same spot over the trees. This went on for about 5 minutes, all of them eventually disappearing off to the east. The lights would gradually become more faint, and then disappear all together, like they had gone into the atmosphere. They made no sound. A plane flew overhead, at a much higher altitude than these “objects”, and you could definitely hear it. My sister got about 4 videos of it on her phone. I have never seen anything like this before, but we are all describing the same thing here. I feel crazy for thinking I saw UFO’s (especially after seeing all the alien fanatics that think they’ve been abducted before)…but after reading everyone’s responses, and watching youtube videos, I have no other explanation.
My husband, me, and our neighbors all witnessed a low-flying, orange, floating “orb” after we set off fireworks on the 4th. We live in Missouri. We were so freaked out by it because it was only 150 feet or so up and it floated right over our neighbors house. We chased it as far as we could but were stopped by thick trees; however, it appeared to be losing altitude. We really thought it was a UFO until the next day when my husband investigated the area where we lost sight of it and found a spent chinese lantern. We were disappointed that it wasn’t a real “alien” spacecraft. So, I bought some chinese lanterns of our own and we set three asail this evening! They are quite beautiful and amazing to watch them climb higher and higher until they are out of sight. So, if you hear about any “UFOs” in the St. Charles County Missouri area, it may just be our lanterns!
Hi guys, me and my wife have witnessed what we would call a UFO sighting over London (UK) last night (9 July 2010), just thought you would be interested.
It happened approximately between 10.30pm and 11pm, there were loads of them (maybe about a hundred in total or more) coming from South West flying over London and disappearing to the North East for about 30mn in total.
They looked like orange lights flying fast and high, we thought it could be balloons or chinese lanterns but there wasn’t a strong wind that night to explain their speed and directions: they seemed to go high first on the South West, some looking like dancing with each other, and then crossing straight over London to the North East at fast speed.
Some of them seemed to fly in formation and the shape of the formation and the distance between each of its elements remained constant.
We caught it on camcorder and have still to process it, let us know if you would be interested in seeing the video.
I suppose we will know more about this today in the news, as we are probably not the only ones to have witnessed that.
Best Regards,
Herve & Dalila
my family and I saw one of these lights on the 4th of July over lake Sutherlin outside of Port Angeles, WA
July 4, 2010 Evansville, IN Approx. 9:30 PM
I was in my sister-in-law’s hot tub. I was hearing fireworks all around me but not seeing any because of the house on two sides and tall trees on the third. I wasn’t concerned about the time, but it was around 9:30 in the evening. In front of me over the house I noticed a bright orange light traveling across the patch of sky that was visible to me. The color was solid orange (no blinking or fading in and out). The object moved straight (level)from south to north across the sky. I heard no sound from the object. The speed was constant and fairly fast, but I had time to mentally question myself for a few seconds then point it out to my sister-in-law. She couldn’t figure out what it might be either. We were discussing what it might have been when a few minutes later another one went over. It appeared to be somewhat larger (larger or closer?). The second one had a flight pattern the same as the first – same direction, same general speed, possibly closer. I can’t imagine a lantern traveling at that speed and in such a straight line.
Rob in Salt Lake City 24 hours later:
I’ve tried to make sense of what I saw last night and came up with two plausible theories. The first, which I have disqualified is that I was witnessing a reentry by the Space Shuttle at a much greater distance than I originally perceived and at an angle more or less directly toward my position.
The second, is that I was watching some sort of burning balloon. I had this notion in my mind tonight and then saw some you tube videos on Chinese lanterns. If that is what I saw, It was quite large and was either on fire entirely, or was supporting an enormous flame before burning out. This does however explain the orange flame color, the lack of sound, the slow movement, and the ultimate disappearance if it were to burn itself out.
Still, I wish someone would confirm they saw what I saw last night, or someone would confess to launching the thing. Like I say, I saw it for two minutes before it disappeared. It could have been there much longer before I noticed it upon admiring the full moon.
Mkay well Ive seen floating orange light thingys at night but I don’t think that are the Chinese lanterns because I saw them on random dates, not on July 4th or new years. And I’m in Texas by the way. It’s just so weird. Sometimes the light would flicker, and they woul slowly rise up higher into the sky while also floating across the sky. But I really have no clue, it couldve simply been a lantern. Also our family friends whose house we were at when we saw them the first time has seen them 3 different times, and they said they lights got close to their house so I think they would lve noticed if they were lanterns. What do y’all think??
So about a year ago I saw about 4 or 5 orange lights moving across the sky and slowly gaining altitude. After a few minutes they started to flicker and eventually died out and disappeared. I heard about people saying they were just chinese lanterns, so I looked up a few youtube videos of them and the color seems the exact same but the lanters light look like a sphere/circle type of thing, while that I saw looked like one of those skinny candles, it was like a straight line. So I’m not really sure what it is…
^ and btw, I did not see these on the 4th of July
Ok, so I saw these orange light, in a group of four or five moving perfectly in sync. They went across the sky slowly moving upward and ocasionally in an up and down motion. after about 2 or 3 minutes they began to flicker, and about 30 seconds later they died out. After I did a little research I thought they were Chinese lanterns, but if they were they would move the same way as the wind, and they moved the exact opposite of the wind, which I find weird. I have absolutley no clue as to what they are. They were sort of rectangular like one of those tall skinny candles. I had originally thought they were planes, but there was no noise whatsoever, and they got pretty close and I could clearly tell that it wasn’t a plane.
last night on the 17th of december 2010 i seen an orange ball of light around the Crookston area of Glasgow did anyone see this, ive also noticed some strange lights in the sky that are a lot diffrent from the orange balls with a lot of diffrent activity one sighting included two white lights coming from quite a far distance apart one from the left one from the right when they met in the middle they seemed to disapear this was in fact not the last time i would see this activity i used to watch and see the same thing happen almost every other week. people dont seem to notice these lights i think a lot of people just think they are normal aircraft and dont actually watch them but there is some weird lights in the sky over Glasgow. has anyone else noticed this?
Hi,
We saw just today 18.12.10 at 19.53 6 orange balls
of ( red ) lights around in Netherlands ( Cuijk )
I have no idea what’s is this.
It’s incredible….