Local videos showing a strange flare – or light, or something else entirely – in the skies over London have left citizens puzzled for two straight nights.
In a small echo of the drone panic that hit the northeastern U.S. in November, a pair of videos posted to social media on Wednesday and Thursday night, respectively, show a bright, blinking object that appeared to be falling in the sky.
“It looks like a fireball because of the trail behind it,” Facebook user Julian Nanabush wrote in a video they posted to social media on Wednesday night, one they indicated was recorded at Richmond Street and Fanshawe Park Road.
Comments were turned off the post. And it was just a one-off. Until it wasn’t.
Twenty-four hours later, a video was posted on social media showing something similar in the skies above London’s Old North neighbourhood shortly after 8 p.m. on Thursday, according to the person who posted it.
“I’ve never seen an object like it before,” they wrote. “Too long-lasting to be a firework. If it was a traditional flare, I’d expect it to be brighter.”
The post drew several theories in reply, including “100% aliens” and, more pointedly: “Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.”
Wrote another viewer: “It’s a flare. Looks to be the marine type that is supposed to hang in the air to alert people of distress.”
As of Friday morning, London police officials said they hadn’t received any formal reports from citizens about the lit-up skies. But they had been warned on Tuesday night that a naval base located on Becher Street – west of downtown, close to Wharncliffe Road – planned to set off flares.
It was unclear whether they continued doing so for the two subsequent nights. Officials with HMCS Prevost did not immediately reply to a Free Press request for comment on Friday.