BROOMFIELD, Colo. – Over the weekend, Denver7 viewers lit up the station’s phones about a string of mysterious lights in the sky.
The mystery has been solved. The low-lying line of lights were at least 30 military planes in training.
Viewers continued posting on social media, skeptical about those findings.
Denver7 reporter, Amanda del Castillo, reached out to aviation experts about other ways to determine exactly what is in our skies at any given time.
“If you see a red light, a green light and a white light—all together— in kind of in a triangle shape… more than likely it's an airplane,” Jackie Burant said.
Burant is the Chief Instructor at Western Air Flight Academy in Broomfield. It is one of three flight schools near the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.
“Sometimes you'll also see white flashing lights on the wing-tips as well,” she added.
We told her about the dozens of social media responses from viewers who aren’t convinced the mysterious lights over the weekend were military.
She responded, “I think there are enough conspiracy theories about it, out there.”
Burant even explained the lighted clusters we see in the sky. She said the lights are likely several aircraft flying in formation (or so they say.)
With a quick internet search, it wasn’t difficult to find several videos of unexplained objects flying fast, flying low and flying too close to home.
There are phone applications like Plane Finder 3D, GoSat Watch Satellite Tracking, and websites like FlightRadar24 or FlightAware that will let you know which specific aircraft are overhead.
The apps cost a few dollars to download.
“So, as long as those planes are actually in the system, then we can log them and track them,” Burant said.
She explained, if you can’t find the aircraft, it could be a student pilot logging one of 45 to 250 hours of required flight time.
If that still isn’t the case, Burant said it could also be the Military, “They normally keep that pretty quiet.”
If you have concerns about what might be in your airspace, Burant said you should contact your nearby airport for answers.
