Former governor of Maryland Larry Hogan shared a video on Friday, claiming to have "personally witnessed (and videoed) what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland."

Claims of unidentified objects — some of which appear to be the size of cars — flying over much of the East Coast in recent weeks has had the media in an iron grip.

Yet plenty of questions remain. While we know that the FBI is investigating the sightings, we still have no idea what they are, where they came from, or whether observers are confusing them with more mundane objects.

At least as far as Hogan's video "evidence" is concerned, the X-formerly-Twitter community had a simple explanation.

While we have yet to see any independent analysis of Hogan's shaky, 92-second video, there's a good chance the former governor was simply seeing the ordinary night sky. A community note appended to Hogan's original tweet notes that the "stars at the 39-second mark are recognizably the constellation Orion."

"From this, you can determine that the bright lights behind the trees are the stars Sirius and Procyon," the note reads. "No anomalous objects are apparent in this video."

 

 

Social media, naturally, had a field day.

"Congratulations Governor, you have 'discovered' Betelgeuse and Bellatrix," one user replied, along with a video superimposing Hogan's "drones" on a map of the night sky, showing that they seem to align perfectly with known stars. "These are two of the brightest stars in the constellation of Orion."

The topic of mysterious drones has hit a fever pitch — and even president-elect Donald Trump doesn't appear to be clued into what's going on.

"Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country," he wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday. "Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don’t think so!"

"Let the public know, and now," he thundered. "Otherwise, shoot them down!!!"

Over the weekend, officials in New York jumped into action.

"In response to my calls for additional resources, our federal partners are sending a drone detection system to New York," New York governor Kathy Hochul tweeted on Sunday.

Hochul also called for Congress to address the situation.

"I am grateful for the support, but we need more," she wrote. "Congress must pass a law that will give us the power to deal directly with the drones."

Meanwhile, Senator Chuck Schumer said that he hoped to pass a bill to give local enforcement "more tools for drone detection."

But experts are still divided on whether these "drones" actually pose a threat. Could it all be mass hysteria? Are people just spotting manned aircraft in the night sky?

"There is nothing conclusive about these alleged drone sightings," physical security researcher Deviant Ollam told Wired. "It’s a famous and popular pastime of Americans to panic and make political hay out of things they don’t understand, and therefore, decide to fear."

"Each of these 'drones' have a green light on the right, a red light on the left, and a strobe light, which is required by the [Federal Aviation Administration] at night," former representative and Air National Guard member Adam Kinzinger said in a video posted to Bluesky last week. "So either the aliens and Iranians are complying with FAA law or it's something else."

More on the drones: Mystery "Car-Sized" Drones Reach the Skies of New York


Share This Article