Federal Way UFOs Are Actually Chinese Lanterns

Last Sunday, the reports of unidentified floating lights being seen over the city of Federal Way in Washington made headlines. People caught the incident on camera and posted it online. People across the world viewed it and started proposing their own theories about aliens traveling through these UFOs. One unidentified viewer explained that the floating lights are nothing but Chinese lanterns released as a ritual for the Chinese New Year celebration.

The Q13 News report explained that, last Saturday, it was the first day of the Year of the Rooster of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. It is customary to release lit paper lanterns during this time. These floating lanterns were spotted and people started considering them as a UFO sighting incident.

The said incident is a perfect example of what NASA has been saying about pareidolia. NASA says that no incident of UFO sighting or alien travel or existence of life on Mars can be accepted until firm scientific evidence supporting that is procured. Images and UFO sightings cannot be used as evidence, because they may be an outcome of "pareidolia."

NASA tried to explain the phenomenon in a not so recent post on Facebook @FollowNASA360. The post read: "The phenomenon of pareidolia is when people see familiar shapes in images."

It also said that this is the reason why various shapes and faces can be made from images of cosmic clouds.

Ever since NASA's Curiosity Mars rover started exploring the surface of the Red Planet, the images captured by the rover's camera have been used as evidence of existence of life on Mars. UFO hunters have allegedly identified an alien woman, monkey, crab, snail and several other organisms in the images sent by the Curiosity rover, while NASA has not approved of any such reports and blamed it all on pareidolia.

IFL Science explained the reason why the phenomenon of pareidolia is so common among people. The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark, a book written by Carl Sagan, explained that pareidolia is "the ability to identify threats in the distance or in poor visibility was imperative to our survival."

Even though pareidolia is common, people cannot completely negate the possibility of existence of aliens and UFOs. The best way to analyze UFO sightings is to separate the facts from assumptions and look for a logical and scientific explanation.