Is there a video showing a UFO flying over Italy?

The Pentagon’s investigation into hundreds of UFO sightings reported over the past 18 months has garnered both public and political attention, and Congress has openly shared its desire to investigate available government information. are doing.

The Department of Defense established the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office in July 2022 to investigate “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” and confirmed the existence of a government database containing at least 800 reports of “anomalous” objects. .

The excitement and interest in these stories has sparked numerous claims around the world, including recent social media posts containing video footage allegedly depicting a UFO over an unnamed town in Italy. It is.

Claim

A post on X (formerly Twitter), posted by user @Alphafox78 on January 21, 2024 and viewed 1.2 million times, includes a video that appears to show a series of bright objects falling from the sky into a river. I was there. User @Alphafox78 wrote, “Italian UFO, what is it dropping?”

fact

Congressional interest in UFO and UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon) sightings continues to be followed by a series of false and questionable posts about alien life. Most notably, the presentation of “non-human” corpses in Mexico’s Congress in 2023 was tainted by convincing evidence that they were man-made.

This recent video of a bright object falling from the night sky is equally suspicious, and despite the current widespread interest in UAPs, there are no other reports.

First of all, this video was shot in Vilnius, Lithuania, not Italy. newsweek I was able to pinpoint the exact location using Google Maps. A reverse image search of the clip revealed that it was recorded in Vilnius on February 16, 2022, and depicts “multiple drones” falling into the Neris River, which runs through the center, and colliding with it. Results were found on YouTube and other sources. Capital of Lithuania.

Search for “drone”, “Vilnius” and the date in Lithuanian. newsweek I found a report from the news agency lrytas.lt. It included both a longer version of the video and more information about the article.

This video shows more of the drone display and includes a long shot of the drone falling into the river. A translation by lrytas revealed an article quoting the event organizer. Organizers did not comment on whether the drone had fallen into the river, but said the show had been suspended due to weather conditions.

Drone display failures like this are not unheard of. In 2023, a drone show celebrating the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane was canceled after 350 drones crashed into Melbourne’s Yarra River the week before. guardian report.

In China, hundreds of drones were filmed falling from the sky during a similar display in Guangdong province in August 2023.

The cause of the malfunction in Lithuania is not clear, but footage, media reports, and related online content indicate that it has nothing to do with UFOs or UAPs.

judgment

error.

This footage is not of a UFO and was not filmed in Italy. This clip was recorded in February 2022 at a drone exhibition center in Vilnius, Lithuania. Multiple drones fell from the sky into a nearby river.

fact checker Newsweek’s fact checking team