The video, originally captured by Mario Rios while he was on the side of an unnamed freeway in El Paso around 7:15 p.m. local time on Tuesday, shows a group of red orbs hovering as a unit in the distance.
Conspiracy theory-focused YouTube page The Hidden Underbelly 2.0 quickly picked up the video and speculated on what Rios had observed.
“We could write these off quite simply as Chinese lanterns, but they don’t seem to be flickering - they seem to be following a path,” the channel owner said in his own clip posted to the video-sharing site on March 18. “And also, Mario does sound a bit scared.”
YouTuber Edson Castro, a resident of Brazil, said in a comment on the video that he had observed a cluster of 50 lights that were similar to the ones seen in Rios’ video, claiming they “ran in the sky and disappeared into space.”
“It was strange, they say it is a new satellite but it is hard to believe that satellites would appear so far,” Castro said.
Another user suggested that the lights could be from a number of drones that were being flown in the distance. YouTuber badbug appeared to disagree that the lights were from a human-operated vehicle and argued that the alleged aircraft were controlled by extraterrestrials “practicing for the forthcoming invasion.”
Whatever the case may be in El Paso, it is possible that individuals will have more time on their hands to observe the night sky in the near future, considering the growing number of quarantine and lockdown announcements worldwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic.