UPDATE: Lafayette, Colorado UFO

Mysterious lights were in the sky above Lafayette, Colorado more than a week ago, and were captured on video by one witness. The UFO video gained widespread attention, and continues to receive attention from media outlets around the world. Some, however, believe the strange lights were nothing more than road flares attached to balloons.

LiveScience’s Bad Science columnist Benjamin Radford published an article yesterday, presenting the “road flare” theory to explain the Colorado lights. In his article, Radford bases his theory on comments made by Leroy van der Vegt, the witness who videotaped the lights. Van der Vegt said the lights moved silently through the sky. From this, Radford concluded that “the lights were likely floating, not moving under their own power.” This led him to his suggestion of “road flares tied to balloons.” Supporting his theory further, Radford mentions the description provided by van der Vegt of the disappearance of the lights—after staying steady, they “faded away.” Radford points out that this “fading away” is “exactly as dying road flares would do.”

But as Radford points out, “Of course it’s also possible that aliens visited Colorado last week in a spacecraft that just happens to look like road flares tied to balloons . . .” The disappearance of lights by a gradual “fading away” doesn’t prove that flares were tied to balloons in this case, even though hoaxes involving balloons and road flares have been proven in the past. While further evidence to support the theory may surface in the future, for now, the lights still remain unidentified.