Surprisingly convincing for a YouTube video
Last week several eyewitnesses reported seeing a strange bright light in the sky. But only one person filmed it: an amateur astronomer named Allen Epling. On October 16th he was alerted to the presence of the strange light. He hustled outside with his telescope and a video camera, and caught some amazing footage.
These days I dismiss most video out of hand. It's trivial to fake anything you want with CGI, and when you rule out the CGI work you are usually left with people who filmed something normal without realizing it (like a flotilla of white balloons from a wedding, or the reflection of lights in a window pane). But in this case, I have to say I am fairly convinced that this recording is just what it purports to be: video footage of a strange UFO in the sky over Kentucky.
First, we have the corroborating stories. Unlike most hoax/mistaken identity videos, this was a situation where many people throughout the area reported the sighting. Kentucky State Police told local newspapers that they received five calls about the object hovering over Pikeville, and that the object was also seen over other towns nearby.
Next, the fact that this occurred in broad daylight. It's literally child's play to attach a string of LEDs to a kite or an RC helicopter and send it buzzing around in the middle of the night. But this sighting took place in the middle of the day, against a bright blue sky. I'm not aware of any LEDs that can put out this kind of wattage in daylight. It would take a fairly powerful light source to be this bright in full sunlight.
And finally… yeah, that's a pretty weird thing. Epling says it looked like two parallel fluorescent tubes which would gradually brighten and then get dim. The long rectangular shape is very peculiar. The only possible explanation I could think of would be some kind of unusual box kite, perhaps fitted with something that was reflecting sunlight.
If you look carefully, it appears that the two light sources are shaped like two arrows pointing back-to-back. If this object was moving, I would suspect that it was an airplane with unusual reflectors or a military drone. But Epling and other eyewitnesses say that the object was hovering silently in the sky. (It may appear to be moving in Epling's footage, but he has clarified that this is just the movement of his camera as he had to manually hold it up to the telescope's lens.)
All in all, this is definitely a remarkable find.