In the video, a bright blue object seems to be spinning while suspended in the dark sky. It also appears to move slowly through the air.
The video and story have gotten a lot of attention for amateur videographer Anthony Piceno. Said Piceno, "I looked up in the sky and, you know, it was just a different object, it was neon blue, red flashing lights." But the mystery of what the object was - or was not - seems to have been solved. It was a fake, and it's not the first time the faker has done this.
"When he peered out his window in American Fork, Utah," reported International Business Times, "Anthony Piceno saw a UFO hovering in the night sky. Neon blue and red lights flashed in the sky and drifted slowly from side to side. The UFO, or Unidentified Flying Object, was unlike anything he had ever seen."
Piceno's UFO video was shown on The Weather Channel, which created a lot of buzz. Predictably, there were those who immediately assumed it was an alien spacecraft with a crew of extraterrestrials, along with those who were skeptical and thought there was a more earthly explanation.
Seems the skeptics were right. The New York Daily News demystified the alleged UFO in a February 1st news article. Here's an excerpt:
"If you saw these lights and were wondering what it was, well guess no more," said Andrew Smith. "This 'UFO' was launched as part of a contest to expose the logo for the website 'Freelancer.com.'" .... The craft was made of 16 feet of LED blue strip tape and "four cheap 'LED projectors' with the LED light unit pulled out," Smith wrote.... The website had launched the contest late last year. It called for people to submit video entries showing creative ways to display their logo. It officially ended Tuesday." Smith even posted his own video of the "UFO" on YouTube.
It's not the first time that Smith has done this kind of thing. Smith is an artist who lives in Lehi, Utah. That's not far from where Anthony Piceno saw what he saw last week.
Nearly a year ago, however, on February 2011, Tracey Parece of the Boston Top News Examiner reported that "An artist named Andrew Smith has claimed responsibility for recent UFO sightings in Utah. In an interview with ABC4 on Friday, February 18, 2011, Smith asserts that the strange lights reported in the sky over Utah County last month and on Valentine's Day 2011 were created by him using flares, helium, and undisclosed methods."
The "UFO" that Anthony Piceno saw may not have been out of this world, and we can now say that it's actually an "IFI." We do, however, believe that Andrew Smith's powers of promotion are out of this world.
VIDEO: "MSM Gets the Memo: Lights in Friday Night Sky Over Utah Launched by Artist"
