Weather may explain Mexico UFO stir (ball lightening) | CNN

[Ediacara]

Weather may explain Mexico UFO stir

Monday, May 17, 2004 Posted: 10:15 AM EDT (1415 GMT)


Unidentified lights appear on video
taken by Mexican Air Force pilots.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -- A cluster of mysterious objects that surrounded a Mexican Air Force plane, alarming the pilots and sparking a UFO scare, could be a weather phenomenon known as ball lightning, a scientist said on Friday.

The pilots grew nervous during a routine drugs surveillance flight in March when their radar detected strange objects flying nearby and an infrared camera showed 11 blobs of light, invisible to the eye, hovering or darting about their plane.

Mexico's Air Force this week released footage from the infrared camera that was shown widely on television.

As Mexican and international media published photographs of the objects, UFO Web sites saw the case as possible evidence of a new sighting of some form of extraterrestrial life.

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