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The fear was amplified by the fact that the sighting occurred just weeks after similarly focussed Congress hearing.
Mysterious lights sighted over Capitol Hill | Image/X
Mysterious lights sighted above the US Capitol building this week have sparked speculation and fear about the potential Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), with some shutting down the claims by calling them gleaming lights.
A viral snapshot taken by US Air Force veteran and licensed tour guide Dennis Diggins shows four bright lights hovering just above the Statue of Freedom, which is stationed atop the Capitol dome.
A separate video taken from a different angle sparked fear among the netizens, leading them to question how these bright lights came out of nowhere.
The fear was amplified by the fact that the sighting occurred just weeks after Congress held a hearing discussing alleged secret government programs related to “alien” spacecraft.
X User Fact-Checks Claims
While some settled for the rumour, others came to the fore to debunk the purported UFO sighting, with one X user linking the “mysterious lights” to reflections in the night sky.
“The lights at the U.S. Capitol building have been causing ‘UFO sightings’ in the camera lens for decades & decades,” John Greenewald, Jr., a researcher and Ufologist, said on X.
“(Just lens flares, but interesting someone is passing them around, again, and more so interesting people are buying it. New photo, same lens flare ‘phenomenon)” he added.
The lights at the U.S. Capitol building have been causing “UFO sightings” in the camera lens for decades & decades.(Just lens flares, but interesting someone is passing them around, again, and more so interesting people are buying it. New photo, same lens flare ‘phenomenon’.) https://t.co/nhm2pxvawf pic.twitter.com/WGrTS543mY
— John Greenewald, Jr. (@blackvaultcom) November 27, 2024
The reported UFO sighting follows recent hearings in the US Senate and House of Representatives, where witnesses discussed alleged secret retrieval programs, communication with non-human intelligence, and government efforts to intimidate whistleblowers.
This hearing took place after the Pentagon released a report in March stating that it had found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft.