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Notes -
Like most UFO’s, these are almost certainly mundane flying objects getting misidentified by onlookers. That should be our default assumption in a ‘see Bigfoot think black bear’ type way. This case is bolstered by the sheer number of sightings which are clearly identifiable as planes.
It would be very exciting and cool for this to be ayys, but each of the videos I've seen ends up looking either like a regular drone, a commercial airliner, or something else that happens to have FAA red-green lighting (which wouldn't make sense for a military stealth drone experiment or for alien aircraft).
So yes, I think you're right. We are seeing mass hysteria possibly coupled with people just not having taken the time before to notice just how many flying objects are actually in your typical American night sky. And really, I can relate to this (at the risk of typical minding I suppose) because over the last year, my toddler has become obsessed with planes and seeing them at night so I didn't have any idea myself how active and busy aircraft are at night until we started watching them all the time.
Seems like a decent disguise, though.
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