Every few weeks since January of this year (2007) there have been reports of people across Western Arkansas seeing strange lights in sky particulary around Van Buren, Ar and thus being dubbed "The Van Buren Lights".
After some investigating by the news station I worked for it was concluded they were likely a type of flare dropped from
military aircraft (The A-10 Warthog) and suspended from parachutes. This allowed the objects to appear to barely move or not move at all. Additionally, the flares
would suddenly appear out of dark sky, would blink out all of a sudden, and was often accompanied by several other flares and appear in some sort of formation...all of this contributed to
people all over the world thinking these "lights" were indeed UFO's. Well, if there was any doubt here is video I just shot of the flares. You can clearly see
the smoke trails in the zoomed in parts of the video. Also, I could see aircraft flying all around that area.
