On Monday, April 8, millions of North Americans watched the total solar eclipse. The astronomical phenomenon has led to a number of unusual occurrences, including a spike in searches for “sore eyes,” as well as strange behavior by animals in zoos where the moon’s shadow has passed.
Perhaps the biggest splash on social media, however, was a video of an alleged unidentified flying object spotted in the skies over Texas. The very next day after the eclipse, a 20-second video recorded in Arlington was published on X (formerly Twitter), where residents and guests could observe the full phase of the cosmic phenomenon.
The video, titled “Red Alert,” shows an unknown dark object in the shape of a cigar or narrow disk moving rapidly through the clouds, disappearing among them and then reappearing.
The recording is accompanied by the famous tune from The X-Files and the alarmed exclamations of people off-screen who gathered to watch the eclipse but saw a strange shadow in the area of the sky where the Sun met the Moon.
One of them can be heard shouting, “Wow, there’s something flying in the sky! What the hell is this?” Meanwhile, someone else declares that “these are aliens.” The video went viral on social media — so far, almost 23 million users have watched the X video alone, leaving thousands of comments.
Reaction on social networks and attempts to explain the phenomenon
Some believed in the alien origin of the phenomenon in the sky over Arlington, calling it a harbinger of imminent contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, and someone even saw the outlines of a dragon in the strange object. However, there were also those who tried to explain the phenomenon logically. “It’s a shadow in the clouds from an airplane flying at a very high altitude. I’ve seen this many times when I was into aviation surveillance,” one commentator wrote. Other users agreed, noting that the shadow does resemble an airplane with engines on its wings and disappears whenever it moves to a part of the sky that is not covered with clouds.
“I also immediately thought of an airplane when I saw it. However, if it turned out to be a real UFO, it would be much more fun,” another shared his opinion. And someone suggested that “the video was created with the help of editing and computer graphics solely for the sake of clicks.”
Some users have tried to refute the plane theory by saying that air traffic in the areas affected by the eclipse has allegedly been suspended, but data from Flight Radar suggests otherwise. “Arlington is located on the approach to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and also has its own municipal airfield with several runways. This, of course, is not a UFO, but an airplane, the shadow of which is clearly visible in the lower edge of the clouds,” the message attached to the video says.
The viral video has become overgrown with a variety of memes related to the confrontation between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential elections in the United States, as well as the fact that 2024 will be held under the auspices of an alien invasion.
“Why do they fly to the U.S. every time? Do aliens not know about the existence of other places on Earth?” one of the participants in the conversation asked ironically.
Secret UFO and Alien Mummy Program
In 2023, several high-profile news came from North America at once related to alleged contacts with aliens. For example, last summer, former U.S. intelligence agent David Grush said that U.S. intelligence agencies have been seriously studying extraterrestrial life forms for many years.
In an interview with NewsNation, he said that Washington stores “intact and partially intact” aircraft of alien origin that have either landed successfully or crashed. And during his speech to Congress, Grush announced a program to study alien technologies that in many ways exceed the capabilities of the US Army.
At the same time, when asked whether the American authorities could have made contact with aliens, the former intelligence officer refused to answer. Grush only noted again that the intelligence services have fragments of crashed spacecraft and “non-human” biological material. Grush also said that the U.S. government is carefully hiding secret programs, and witnesses and those who are going to divulge information will face reprisals.
In March 2024, the Pentagon prepared a report where it stated that there was no evidence of the existence of aliens, the detection of spacecraft and that they had ever visited Earth. The report also noted that since the 1960s, the U.S. population has mistaken secret tests of reconnaissance aircraft and drones for UFOs.
Another recent high-profile case involving aliens occurred in the fall of 2023 in Mexico. An international team of ufologists has informed the local government of the discovery of ancient mummified bodies of “non-human beings” of extraterrestrial origin in Peru. Representatives of Congress were shown strange objects of small stature, without teeth and with three fingers on their hands. In addition, according to ufologists, radiocarbon analysis showed that the bodies are more than a thousand years old.
At the same time, scientists from the Institute of Astronomy of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) soon considered the claims about “mummified aliens” to be groundless.
