UFO lights over Fresno on New Year’s Eve. Pic credit: via @KMPHFOX26/Twitter
Residents of Fresno (California) reported UFO lights over the city on New Year’s Eve. The sighting occurred some minutes before midnight on January 1.
A video shared online shows a group of Fresno residents at a house near Cedar and McKinley Avenues, KMPH reported.
The camera focuses on a woman looking up in the sky. She notices strange UFO lights. She then calls the attention of her friends. The woman points upward, and the camera pans to focus on the sky.
The friends sound very excited as they watch the UFO display in the night sky.
UFO lights in the sky
The video shows multiple lights moving across the sky in a formation.
“What are these?” one of the witnesses inquires.
The lights briefly stopped before they started moving again. They could have come from different objects moving in a formation or from the same object.
“They are moving,” a female voice says.
“These are not Starlinks,” a male voice responds.
“Starlinks” are satellites launched into orbit by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. Residents in many regions of the US, including Central Georgia and New Jersey, have mistaken them for UFOs.
The Starlink satellite train is visible from Earth as a string of lights after launch from the company’s bases. But they become less visible when they reach the destination altitude of 340 miles (550 kilometers) because they disperse.
More UFOs appeared
Another set of lights appeared as the Fresno residents watched the skies.
The video shows the UFO lights moving in the sky in a tight formation. One moves ahead of the other, suggesting they are not attached to the body of a single craft.
The witnesses are beside themselves with amazement and scream excitedly.
Online reactions
A witness suggests they could be from military missiles flying overhead. They wondered whether a war had started. But others disagreed.
Another witness thought they were Chinese lanterns. Some of his companions agreed, but another insisted they were not floating lanterns but UFOs.
Other suggestions included airplanes, flares, and material falling from space.
People reported same lights in other cities
A KMPH reader from Vallejo, California, also said they saw the lights. Vallejo is about three hours drive from Fresno.
The witness saw nine orange-colored UFO lights moving upward slowly in an “irregular formation.” After about five minutes, they changed into red, gained altitude, and disappeared.
“I’m a retired aircraft technician and can tell you they were not aircraft,” the witness concluded.
Another witness said they sighted the same UFOs in Houston, Texas.
The fact that Houston is more than 1,5000 miles from Fresno may suggest they were not Chinese lanterns. However, there was no confirmation that the lights allegedly seen in Houston were the same as those over Fresno.