During a news broadcast, a mysterious orb-like object was spotted over the Hudson River in New York City, sparking wild conspiracies.
Fox 5 News aired the segment Monday, which showed an apparently bright object zooming into the shot of the city’s famous skyline.
The video, taken by helicopter, captured a fast-moving ball of light starting from Hoboken, New Jersey and drifting toward the World Trade Center, where it disappeared.
Experts have suggested that the ‘orb’ was either an optical artefact from the helicopter glass in front of the camera, or an out-of-focus bird.
But the sighting has some New Yorkers wondering if there are “aliens among us” – as it comes less than a week after a Pentagon report highlighting a near miss involving a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of the city.
Harvard physicist Avi Loeb wrote what the mysterious sphere was created by ‘a bright spot due to reflection of sunlight as the camera gradually changed its orientation relative to the sun and the ground.
Loeb further explained that if the sphere were a real object, it would have been moving at the speed of sound, and not at anything special.
A segment during “Good Day New York” featured a mysterious orb that appeared to zoom over the Hudson River
The video, first reported by the New York Post, was captured at 6:05 a.m. ET, according to the timestamp in the news segment.
But a representative for ‘Good Day New York’ told the New York Post that they could not determine the exact day the footage was taken, noting that it could have been last year.
If the images had captured an unknown object, it would have traveled about 4,700 kilometers per hour to cover a distance of five kilometers in just four seconds.
The only known comparable would be the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, which can fly about 2,000 miles per hour and is one of the fastest jet aircraft ever built.
Enigma Lab’s UAP advisor Alejandro Rojas told DailyMail.com that the sighting was “a weird one.”
“I’m not sure it would be a reflection off the helicopter glass because the helicopter is moving so slowly and the object doesn’t seem to be moving in the same way as if it were a reflection on the glass,” he said.
Experts have suggested this was caused by the helicopter camera or an out-of-focus bird
“I thought it might be a blurry bird, but towards the end the object looks transparent, which would indicate some form of light refraction rather than a solid object.”
Fox 5 New York shared the clip on its YouTube page, where viewers also spotted the mysterious orb.
‘AHas anyone else seen the UAP? 2:44- 2:47. Some guess [as] to what it is,” read the second comment on the video.
Another user suggested it was “just a blue balloon,” but another person said, “No, that was more than a balloon, I’ve never seen a balloon move so quickly and deliberately.”
“UAP for sure, notice how it bends as it approaches,” one user commented.
New York was also highlighted in the Pentagon report, which was released a day after House lawmakers called for greater government transparency during a hearing on UAPs.
The sighting has some New Yorkers wondering if there are “aliens among us,” as it comes less than a week after a Pentagon report detailing a near miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of the city is highlighted (stock)
The Pentagon investigation details 757 cases of UAP encounters reported to US authorities primarily between May 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024.
This total includes 272 incidents that occurred before then, but had not previously been reported.
Reporting witnesses included commercial and military pilots as well as ground observers.
Most of these incidents occurred in airspace, but 49 occurred at altitudes estimated to be at least 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface, which is considered outer space.
During the reporting period, 81 reports originated from US military operating areas.
Other reports include a witness reporting a ‘jellyfish’ UAP with flashing lights.
The report states that trends in UAP morphologies remain consistent with historical patterns.
“Unidentified lights and round/spherical/spherical objects made up the majority of cases where reports showed clear visual features,” it said.
‘Objects in the ‘other’ category contain unique descriptions such as ‘green fireball’, ‘a jellyfish with [multicolored] flashing lights’ and a ‘silver rocket about two meters long.’
Researchers were able to explain nearly 300 of the incidents, and in many cases the unknown objects were identified as balloons, birds, planes, drones or satellites.