Proving that a good UFO story never gets old, a Mission man's admittedly tequila-influenced witnessing of lights in the sky has gotten some traction on the Web, with the Drudge Report linking to a KCBS story on the incident. Enrique Barrios was headed home from drinking in the Mission with his wife on Saturday night when he witnessed a formation of strange lights in the sky. Whipping out his iPhone, he captured video of the event, complete with commentary track:
"I wasn’t sure if at first if it was another Tequila hazed mirage, but myself and a few bystanders were all in complete awe at the lights we saw on Valencia. Please excuse my drunken reaction," Barrios told Mission Mission. "This was the first time I ever saw something like this. There’s also a yellow speck which is from my iPhone lens but it’s clear which lights I’m referring to. At first glance, I thought it might be fireworks but when they started to form a triangular formation, I knew this was uncommon. You folks be the judge. My final conclusion .UFO’s are here for Papalote salsa."
A handful Mission Mission commenters also reported seeing the strange lights while walking through the Mission and Castro, with multiple descriptions of seven lights that resembled candles and eventually lined up in a triangle formation. (One commenter also claims she saw them in southeast Ohio.) The FAA didn't report any unusual activity in the Bay Area over the weekend, though.
KCBS sought an expert opinion from the excellently named Bing Quock, assistant director of the planetarium at the Academy of Sciences, who says they definitely weren't part of the night sky, and thinks they were probably balloons with lights attached. Our guess? Sky lanterns, probably sent up from someone's wedding or holiday party. We hope someone wrote "I wish I could start a useless media cycle and play into people's weird 2012 superstitions" on the side.
Meanwhile, in New York: our overlords at the Gothamist mothership report several people claim they saw similar light formations hovering over Brooklyn last week. Which totally makes sense that America's hipster enclaves would hear about aliens first. Endtimes, folks.
