Lehi-based sculptor Andrew Smith has claimed responsibility for a series of UFO sightings reported over Utah County, Utah in January of this year, which he says he hoaxed using hinted-at but undisclosed methods. But commenters on the story say that the lights reported over Chicago, Illinois are identical to the ones Smith says he created. And, perhaps most importantly, Smith has nothing of substance he’s willing to provide about exactly how he created the lights, though he does hint at it in the most recent news clip featured on his YouTube channel.
Here’s what Smith told ABC4 in Salt Lake City:
Smith says he experiments with art all the time, from machines, water, to lights and now apparently flares.
The Lehi man won’t say exactly how he gets those strange lights up in the sky but he admits he uses helium and flares along with some other sorts of apparatuses. “Let’s just say I use helium and it’s not Chinese lanterns up there nor planes with LED lights.”
The artist says he was just experimenting and when he saw the news reports, he decided to do it again.
He showed ABC4 his video of the latest event, and says there’s a reason why he’s coming forward. “I don’t want it to spiral out of control and turn into something more than it needs to be so I thought I’d come forward now.”
The ABC4 story provided a link to a raw video on Smith’s YouTube channel. The video provides no further information about how the lights might have been hoaxed, but is taken from a much better vantage point than the cell-phone camera footage featured on an earlier news story.
Commenters on the ABC4 story refer to YouTube video of a similar Chicago sighting that purportedly occurred on February 18 — the same day Smith talked to ABC-4. And how can you not trust footage posted by someone named “tastethesourpickle” — especially when his on-screen response to his haters in his earlier (very similar) sighting is “GTFO, homos”?
Tracey Parese reports that similarly orange UFOs were seen over Boston in 2010, as were some utterly unconvincing ones during a beantown New Year’s Eve celebration.
Of course, this all pales in comparison to the kerfuffle over the 2010 Jerusalem UFO sightings, which appeared over the ancient Islamic Shrine of the Rock — inviting the serious eschatology nuts out of the closet.
The Jerusalem event was widely reported and shot from many different angles. Discovery News says that based on the apparent size of the object — no bigger than a passenger car — it’s either a deliberate hoax or some reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeealllly small aliens.