Were Colorado UFOs Simply Road Flares Tied to Balloons?

Ever since three red lights in a triangular formation were seen and videotaped over Lafayette, Colo., there's been a flurry of online sparring between skeptics and ufologists over what was in the sky on the evening of March 20.

First the background: A formation of three red lights was observed over Colorado. They were caught on video by Lafayette resident Leroy Vandervegt after his son Nick spotted them in the sky.

The lights were described as continuous, unblinking, hovering silently in the air and moving together in the same triangular pattern until they faded away.

Vandervegt never suggested the lights were aliens visiting his neighborhood.

So, what could most likely explain the Colorado lights?

"Road flares tied to balloons," wrote Benjamin Radford, Bad Science columnist at LiveScience.

Radford, who is also managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, mentions that "the formation of the lights is consistent with independently moving objects, not fixed lights on an aircraft."

And yet, he also confirms that "as can be seen in the video and from eyewitnesses, they all moved in one direction together, stayed in more or less the same formation while in the same air currents."

Bradford maintains that because the slow-moving lights were silent and eventually faded away, this supports the idea of dying road flares. "It's not surprising that eyewitnesses could not identify the objects, since most people have not seen road flares tied to balloons in the night sky," he added.

Of course, a look at the reader comments beneath Bradford's story reflects the outrage felt by those open to the possibility of extraterrestrials.

"How do you keep balloons floating in what appears to be an equilateral triangle formation?"

"The fact there is no smoke visible in the video absolutely proves these were not flares. How can a skeptic miss the most obvious fact from the video?"

"Three helium balloons with 15-foot string and enough drinking straws to keep the balloon strings rigid. Three super bright red LEDs taped to cell batteries and to the balloons. Tie the strings together at the bottom, then tie each balloon at the top with three identical lengths to keep them separated from one another and voila: freak out the population."

"When it comes to solving a mystery like this, a professional debunker is just as untrustworthy as a UFO fanatic. ... Any 'flare and balloon' theory must remain as a theory only until thoroughly determined whether such a theory is scientifically feasible. As a REAL scientist, I am not saying that this UFO is either a hoax or something extraordinary."

For another opinion, AOL News reached out to Jon Nowinski, director of the Connecticut-based Smoking Gun Research Agency, a group that investigates "all things fringe."

"It's difficult to tell anything from footage like this, as objects are on a black sky, which makes it impossible to judge size, distance or maneuverability," Nowinski wrote in an e-mail. "They do however, seem to move at the same speed and stay the same distance."

Earlier this year, the Smoking Gun Research Agency investigated a series of similar lights videotaped in the sky over Connecticut, referred to as the "Newtown UFO." In that case, Nowinski's research team determined the objects were paper lanterns.

"People were all too quick to make the jump from UFO to alien craft," Nowinski wrote. "We try to emphasize in much of the work that we do that a UFO simply means unidentified."