Origin
In mid-September 2017, videos purportedly showing a group of unidentified flying objects over Oklahoma City went viral, racking up millions of views within days:
The footage shown above can also be seen in the following video, which compiled several clips also showing these “UFOs” in Utah, not Oklahoma City:
At around the same time that these videos were taken, and at the same time that Utah news stations began to receive calls about “strange lights”, a team of Navy paratroopers
YouTube user Paul Brown captured the moment from inside the stadium:
The University of Utah Athletics Facebook page also uploaded a 360-degree video of the jump. In this video, you can see that the paratroopers used a sort of flair that gave them a unique, perhaps alien, appearance during the flight:
The Utah State Fair was held only a few miles from Rice-Eccles Stadium. When the viral UFO video is watched knowing that a group of paratroopers dropped into a football stadium at the same time and just a few miles away, it becomes clear that the streaking lights are actually parachuters in free fall while dragging flares behind them.
Sources
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Fox 13 [UTAH]. “Strange lights Spotted in Sky Above Salt Lake City.”
16 September 2017.