Authorities have come up with several possible explanations for the alleged "jetpack sightings" over Los Angeles, California - and, according to them, the mystery may not involve any high-flying technology at all.
"One working theory is that pilots might have seen balloons", the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Federal Aviation Administration said, cited as by NBC.
The theory emerged after three cases of commercial airline pilots reporting something they believed could have been jetpacks flying at altitudes of 3,000 feet, 6,000 feet, and 5,000 feet. Two of the cases were registered in 2020, with the most recent one emerging in July 2021.
Suggestions that "jetpacks" might actually be balloons received additional support due to images captured by a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter crew last yeat that showed what appeared to be a human-size inflatable toy of Jack Skellington, a charachter from Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas", flying over Beverly Hills.
The authorities not having found any witnesses or recordings of the flying objects that the pilots claimed to have seen also appears to corroborate this theory about the alleged jetpacks.
"The FAA has worked closely with the FBI to investigate every reported jetpack sighting", the FAA said. "So far, none of these sightings have been verified".
Despite the suggestions that the pilots could have mistaken the balloons for jetpacks, the authorities noted that the investigation into the incidents remains ongoing.
Last year, David Mayman, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Jetpack Aviation, cast doubts on the "jetpack" explanations, saying that the machines produced by his company simply do not have enough fuel in them for a person to climb and descend. Instead, he told NBC at the time, the whole trick could be pulled off via the use of a remotely controlled drone with an inflatable mannequin on it.