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| - Fact Check: UFO fleet in the night sky? Nope, these are just birds
Many social media users are claiming that this video shows UFOs spotted over a Middle Eastern country. It doesn't.
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India Today Fact Check
This video from Mongolia shows a flock of birds, likely geese, spotted in the night sky.
A video showing a string of white dots moving in a synchronized fashion in the sky has become the latest target of conspiracy theories. It has been shot in an area with lots of highrises.
Some sharing the video claimed that it shows a UFO fleet over a city, possibly over a middle eastern country. Others linked it to the Blue Beam Project, a conspiracy theory that posits that NASA and the United Nations are using powerful technology to establish control over humans.
A Twitter user wrote, “A UFO fleet has appeared over the city. I feel fear at the appearance of a large number of UFOs. It indicates that contact between aliens and humans is close.” The archived version of this post can be seen here.
India Today, in its investigation, found that this video shows a flock of birds flying over the skies in inner Mongolia.
Our Probe
We noticed that many responded to the viral Twitter post, saying that the video showed birds.
We subsequently ran a search using that information and found that a person had recently posted this video on YouTube claiming that it was captured in inner Mongolia in March.
Many Chinese people shared it in March
Next, we searched using keywords in the Chinese language on Google.mn. The “mn” is the country code top-level domain for Mongolia. We found that many people had posted this video on Douyin in late March this year. Douyin is the Chinese version of Tiktok. Many had attributed it to a user “Floatworld”.
Original source of the video
On scanning the Douyin profile of “Floatworld”,we found that they had posted the video on March 25 and said that they were the one who shot it. According to the information given in the bio section of the Douyin account, it belonged to a 23-year-old who lives in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of northern China.
They also explained why the birds appeared so bright in the video. The text alongside the video in the Chinese language roughly translates to, “I read on the internet that the feathers of birds are relatively smooth, so they reflect light sources such as urban buildings at night. Also, modern phones are capable of taking high-quality pictures. That’s the reason why the flock of birds appears bright.”
Responding to a person’s question on the social media app, “Floatworld” said that this video was recorded in Hohhot, Mongolia.
The Chinese newspaper Sanxiang Metropolis Daily had also shared this video on Douyin and said that it showed a flock of geese and was recorded by a person who lived in inner Mongolia.
Why do birds flock together?
We sent the viral video to the ornithologist Rafiq Somani. He told India Today that these were clearly geese flying in their famous “V” formation. “Due to lights from the ground or moonlight, their white wings look bright. They fly in this formation to conserve their energy. Each bird flies slightly above the bird in front of them, resulting in a reduction of wind resistance. The birds take turns to be in the front, moving back when they get tired. In this way, the geese can fly for a long time before they must stop for rest,” he added.
According to LiveScience, while migrating bird flocks can be seen during the daytime, most birds migrate at night when the air is cooler, and there are fewer predators.
To sum it up, a video showing a flock of birds is being falsely shared as a UFO fleet.
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