DENVER – Just like you, I wanted to believe. I really did. But we all have get back to earth eventually and sadly, those strange lights everyone saw over the Denver metro late Saturday night were not aliens.
The Denver7 newsroom was flooded with calls after 9 p.m. from viewers like you who were asking us if we knew what those flashing lights flying over our skies were all about.
Callers described the lights as a line of red and white lights that were flying in formation from east to west. Some said they heard what sounded like planes or helicopters flying low and silent.
Denver7 reached out to Denver International Airport and they didn't know what they were. We then called Buckley Air Force Base, but we did not hear back from them either.
But ABC affiliate station WACH-TV in South Carolina was able to confirm those strange lights were nothing more than aircraft performing a military exercise.
As it turns out, the lights were over two dozen C-17s from the 437th Airlift Wing, which left Charleston at around 7 p.m. Their final destination was Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Marvin Krause, a spokesman for Joint Base Charleston.
Krause said the military exercise was part of a “routine Joint Forcible Entry mission."
Eric Hurst, a self-described tornado chaser in Colorado, was able to capture the military planes as they made their way over the metro area. Check out what he saw from the rooftop of his home in the video below:
The lights were not only seen in Colorado and South Carolina; they were also reported in the states of Missouri and Montana, according to WACH-TV.
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