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Cigar-shaped UFO over Kentucky identified, maybe?

On October 16, amateur astronomer Allen Epling captured photos and video of a strange cigar-shaped UFO in the sky above Kentucky. Several witnesses in multiple states reportedly saw the same, or a similar, aerial object.

A toy solar balloon. (Credit: Amazon/Toysmith)

The identity of the object over Kentucky baffled witnesses and officials. But on October 31, KIAH-TV in Houston, Texas asserted that the UFO “was nothing more than a kid’s toy airship.” The station explains that these twenty-six-foot-long toy solar balloons are constructed from “a high-density, lightweight matte black film which reacts to the heat from the sun and gets bigger as it fills with air,” and they can go as high as 30,000 feet.

Some suggested this type of solar balloon as a possible identification for the Kentucky UFO immediately after the object was reported. Although the shape of the toy airship is similar to the object captured on video by Epling, the object he observed appears transparent and highly reflective, whereas the solar airship is made of an opaque, black, matte material. Additionally, Epling estimates the object he observed was well above 30,000 feet.

And just for fun, here is what two of these solar airships look like in the sky when they are tied together.

So do you think the object seen by Epling and many others was a kid’s toy airship as KIAH-TV asserts, or do you believe the object remains unidentified? Share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment below, or by posting on our Facebook page.

About Jason McClellan

Jason McClellan is a UFO journalist and the producer/co-host of the web series Spacing Out! He is also the web content manager and staff writer for OpenMinds.tv, and a co-organizer and technical producer of the International UFO Congress. As a founding member of Open Minds, Jason served as a writer and editor for the now defunct Open Minds magazine. He has appeared on Syfy, NatGeo, and, most recently, he co-starred on H2's Hangar 1: The UFO Files. ------ Follow Jason on Twitter @acecentric and subscribe to Jason's updates on Facebook.

6 comments

  1. Oh come ON, Jason….. let’s not keep our minds so open that our brains fall out.

    The solar balloons HAVE to be black in order to heat up and rise, and they blow around like any other balloon.

    The idea that “these two things sorta look similar so they must be the same” is the same one that makes people see Jesus in toast, and animals in Mars rocks. I think we are a little more sophisticated than that.

  2. I agree with you, Will. That’s why I pointed out the obvious problems with the proposed identification.

  3. That’s not even laughable!
    Seriously!
    You know those guys that record balloons in the sky? And then they post videos on YouTube, and then there all like ” No way! That thing is moving unnaturally !”
    And we’re all like ” JESUS DUDE!?!? Really?!?”
    I wonder if there are skeptics that remain skeptic of the other skeptics?
    Is there ever a skeptic that’s like ” um… Jesus dude! Really?”
    Do some people just lack the ability to identify something profound?
    And not that this is the most profound thing I have seen but… Let’s just say I’ve used a telescope!

  4. Anf just to be clear…
    The telescope reference was soley to imply that one who has used one would know how to identify an object that could be…
    An out of focus object, an aircraft, and even balloons very high in the sky…
    We’ve spent a lot of time staring at “UFOs” while living in Phoenix. Gave me some nice pics of weather balloons.

  5. I’ve seen a long cigar-shaped ufo my own eyes a few years ago in Crimea, Ukraine, it followed commercial airliner high up in the sky, it looked rigid, and moved the same speed as the plane.

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