[Tony]
about 100 miles west of London.
From the side of a highway, the passenger in a parked car
notices something in the evening sky,
two bright orbs moving separately.
At first it looks like it might be
a couple of helicopters or drones.
But then, look at this.
They split into five or six smaller objects.
The cluster continues to fly in unison, illuminating the sky
and coordinating maneuvers for a full three minutes.
We considered UFOs and secret military tech,
but ultimately, the answer seemed to come
from testing the validity of the video itself.
And a suspicious edit gave one of our experts pause.
[man]
was removed from the video.
I think I'll have to label this one a hoax.
At the time, our original analysis led us to believe
that video was doctored to deceive.
But then you, our beloved viewers, got involved,
and that changed everything.
[Tony]
some viewers claimed
this wasn't faked footage after all.
This video really needed a second look at
because of this new information.
[Tony]
went back to check the authenticity of the video
and its suspicious edit.
I think what actually happened in this location,
was the cameraman simply moved the camera down, lost the shot
and then moved it back up again
as they came out from behind the hill.
And so they just did a little edit to remove
that little bit of dead air.
[Tony]
trickery or CGI was involved,
which negates our old verdict.
Everything else about the video
seems very genuine to me.
The way the objects move seems very consistent.
[Tony]
natural and technological.
[West]
one of which was meteor shower.
We can kind of rule that out because it changes direction.
Another possibility, drones rigged with fireworks.
But you don't generally have drones with fireworks on,
because drones are quite small.
Also, military technology was kind of ruled out
because they're not gonna be testing
some kind of secret military technology
by the side of a road
where anyone can see it.
[Tony]
It's obviously something that isn't a secret.
It's something that's either intended to be seen
or they don't care if people see it.
[Tony]
could have possibly fit the bill?
The answer almost flew past us,
that is, until we logged on to social media.
We were contacted by a viewer,
who recognized what he was seeing on screen
and he suggested that what we might be looking at
was actually pyrotechnic planes.
[Tony]
that use their wide wingspan to slowly release fireworks
from their wingtips.
They've been used in a variety of functions,
from airshows or weddings,
to the deployment of destruction in war zones.
If that's what we're seeing, who was the responsible party?
All it took was a simple internet search
of the business located in the area of the sighting.
I run a company called Airborne Pyrotechnics.
And we fly a couple of Grob motor gliders
with pyrotechnics and LEDs.
And this is my son Tom.
He is my second pilot.
[Tony]
who have flown all over the world.
And it's not the first time
one of their displays has been mistaken for a UFO.
They even have a warning on their website
for that very reason.
It's funny, we can do a really nice display
and post half a dozen pictures that often get 50 views.
And somebody takes a shaky, wobbly video of us
from ten miles away
and you can't even make out what it is,
says the word "UFO,"
and it gets thousands, hundreds of thousands of views.
I just can't understand it.
Our new verdict?
You guessed it. Airborne Pyrotechnics.
The plane the Dews fly,
the Grob 109B is a twin-seat, self-launching motor glider.
It's been used by the Royal Air Force
to train cadets in basic flying.