Fact Check: Does Video Show UFO Flying Over Italy?

Pentagon investigations into hundreds of reported UFO sightings over the past 18 months have captured the attention of the public and politicians alike, with Congress openly sharing its desire to examine available government information.

The Pentagon established its All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in July 2022 to investigate "unidentified anomalous phenomena," elsewhere confirming the existence of a government database with at least 800 reports of "anomalous" objects.

Excitement and interest in these stories have led to a multitude of claims across the globe, including one recent social media post that included video footage allegedly depicting a UFO over an unnamed Italian town.

The Claim

A post on X, formerly Twitter, by user @Alphafox78, posted on January 21, 2024, viewed 1.2 million times, included a video of what appeared to be a sequence of bright objects falling from the sky, into a river. User @Alphafox78 wrote "UFO in Italy, what is it dropping?"

The Facts

Congress' curiosity into UFO or UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) sightings has been trailed by a series of bogus and dubious posts about alien life. Most notably, a presentation of "non-human" corpses to Mexico's Congress in 2023 was blemished by persuasive evidence that they were man-made.

This recent video of bright objects falling from the night's sky is similarly suspect, with no other coverage despite current widespread interest around UAPs.

First, the video was recorded in Vilnius, Lithuania, not Italy. Newsweek was able to pinpoint the exact location on Google Maps. A reverse image search of the clip brought back results from YouTube and other sources that state it was recorded on February 16, 2022, in Vilnius, and depicts "multiple drones" falling and crashing into the Neris River, which flows through the center of the Lithuanian capital.

Searching for the terms "drones," "Vilnius" and that date in Lithuanian, Newsweek found a report from news outlet lrytas.lt, which included both a longer version of the video and further information about the story.

The video shows more of the drone display, with longer shots of drones falling into the river. A translation of lrytas reveals its story quoted an event organizer, who didn't comment on whether drones had fell into the river but said weather conditions had disrupted the show.

Drone display malfunctions like these are not unheard of. In 2023, a drone show celebrating Brisbane hosting the 2032 Olympics was canceled after 350 drones fell into Melbourne's Yarra River the week before, The Guardian reported.

In China, hundreds of drones were filmed falling from the sky in the Guangdong province in August 2023 during a similar display

While it's not clear what caused the malfunction in Lithuania, the footage, media reports and surrounding online content show that it has nothing to do with UFOs or UAPs.

The Ruling

False.

The footage is not of a UFO nor was it filmed in Italy. The clip was recorded in February 2022 at a drone display in Vilnius, Lithuania. Multiple drones fell from the sky and into a nearby river.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team