Footage of UFO Over New Jersey Goes Viral, Revealed to Be the Goodyear Blimp

“UFO” doesn’t always mean aliens, and for all the people in New Jersey this week that thought visitors from Mars had finally arrived it was just another false alarm. On Monday videos and photos of a supposed flying saucer began to go viral online with one TikTok gaining 4 million views in less than one day though. Insider is here with the truth though, and despite it being a very bad year the culprit had been identified as none other than the Goodyear blimp. According to a representative for the company, the famous blimp flew through New York and northern New Jersey on Monday to nab footage of Monday Night Football’s match between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Giants.

This year has been a big one for UFO enthusiasts and Earth citizens hopeful for a free trip off of the third rock from the sun. Earlier this year came the reveal of three videos from the United States Navy that also seemed to show UFOs, with the footage captured from Naval aircraft. The United States Department of Defense even released a statement on the matter, writing:

“After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena. DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos. The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified.’”

Netflix also gave the world a major dose of UFOs earlier this year when it debuted its new reboot of the hit series Unsolved Mysteries. Within the first six episodes only one focused on anything out of this world. According to producer Terry Dunn Meurer, fans shouldn’t expect to see stories of the supernatural too often in the revival, as the number of mobile devices in the world means an abundance of bizarre evidence of such objects, in addition to such evidence being easier than ever to refute.

“We don’t have nearly as many ‘lost-love’ story submissions as we did, because people can find people (now) with Ancestry.com, 23andMe, and the internet,” she revealed to USA Today. “We don’t have as many UFO stories, because (with) cellphones, you figure if somebody saw (a UFO) a lot of people would be recording it, not just one person.”

Volume 2 of Unsolved Mysteries season 1 will feature six new episodes from Cosgrove/Meurer Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment, and those new episodes will hit Netflix on October 19th. It’s unclear if another UFO episode will be part of that batch.

(Cover Photo by Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)