Description

My comments on the original post will almost definitely get lost in the mix of all the other ones so I’m making an explanatory post, before this whole video gets over-analyzed to its bloody death and blown way out of proportion-

These lights are training flares being shot off the sides of helicopters doing low light training runs out over water. Every aspect of these lights correspond to the attributes of flares. I spent nearly every day of my military service working with the ALE-47 countermeasure systems of attack/support helicopters and can confirm, with absolute confidence, that that’s what these are.

There are three helicopters flying in a loose formation and each one shoots off a flare from either side. When each of the lights first appear, you can very briefly see that they are moving either left or right, parallel to ground, and then start falling and fading. Each one is also accompanied by an initial flash. These flares, and the other types of ordnance that can be loaded up in the buckets, are shot off using CADs, or cartridge actuated devices. These are basically tiny shotgun shells that are electrically primed and are used to both launch the tubes of flares/chaff and to ignite the flares. When you strike match, the initial chemical reaction is a very bright flare up. That’s the same thing that’s happening here. And the strange movement of the flares on the right, where they seem to move quickly, is due to air turbulence from prop wash, or the rotor blades violently churning the air under them. And it may very well have been from the pilot practicing a rapid evasive maneuver after shooting their flares for training/practice.

So the flares get shot off, then slowly fall and burn out, which is why these lights fade, rather than suddenly go out. Military pilots need to maintain a certification on each armament system their aircraft platform has, so these get shot a lot. Countermeasure systems are also oftentimes loaded for training evolutions because they’re “cheap” but also vitally important to the safety of the pilot and helicopter. So I loaded them up almost every time our pilots would go fly, especially for night ops. They are also relatively safe to shoot out over water, since they pose no real danger to anyone unless you happen to be standing pretty nearby. So pilots would fly to a designated training area over the water to test the countermeasures, but also their gun systems, oftentimes using whitecaps for targets and to maintain an effective zero for systems like their HSS, or helmet sight system.

On top of all that, you can clearly see the tail strobe for each helicopter, especially after they shoot off the flares. Usually these are for location and safety purposes for other aircraft in the vicinity and just something the helicopters are programmed to do. But I can’t say a whole lot about all that because that’s an avionics system and I was ordnance.

That’s all that’s happening in this video. It’s not UFOs, or extraterrestrial crafts popping in and out of our reality, or drones, or Chinese lanterns, or fireflies, or anything like that. It’s just some helicopters doing what they do. And that is a 100% certainty.

And if you’ve ever witnessed anything like this, especially in the evening/at night, and especially out over water, that’s what it was.