What happened
On the evening of January 5, 2009, residents of Morristown, New Jersey, saw five red lights in the sky that floated in formation, changed configuration, and after a quarter of an hour or so went out one after another. Reports reached the police and the media, and videos were watched by millions of people on television and online. The lights appeared several more times in January and February. The History Channel devoted an episode of its program “UFO Hunters” to them. On April 1, 2009, two local men, Joe Rudy and Chris Russo, revealed in the magazines “Skeptic” and “Popular Mechanics” that they had been releasing helium balloons with flares attached.
Witnesses
Numerous residents of Morristown and nearby towns who filmed the lights; the perpetrators documented their own actions on video.
Explanations and hypotheses
Rudy and Russo presented videos of their preparations and of the balloon launches. They said they wanted to test how easily the media and “experts” would take ordinary lights for UFOs. They were fined and sentenced to community service for creating a hazard to air traffic. The affair became a textbook example of a hoax.
Hoax A proven or admitted hoax.
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