The 2019-2020 Colorado Drone Sightings - Strange Lights Over Colorado

Originally published on September 3rd, 2024 on Cohost (RIP)

For our next drone-related tale, we’ll sail across the Atlantic to the US, and trek over to western Nebraska and across the state line to northeastern Colorado, where for at least 2 months locals reported swarms of blinking, skittering drones in their otherwise quiet skies.

STRANGE LIGHTS OVER COLORADO - THE 2019-2020 COLORADO DRONE SIGHTINGS

Beginning in November 2019, locals of the sparsely populated, rural tracts of northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska began to see strange lights in the sky. First reported by the Denver Post in late December, farmers, ranchers, residents, and sheriff's deputies had begun to report sets of blinking, multi-colored lights hovering over their hometowns and the isolated highways in between. Sometimes they moved slowly in a methodical grid pattern, like a set of 8 unidentified lights seen over rural highways near Yuma County by an under sheriff, sometimes just standing there hovering menacingly over town, like one seen over the pop. 49 blip of Paoli. In the twilight of new year’s eve, a plumber driving to work near Fort Morgan, Colorado confessed to chasing one at up to 120 mph before losing it, and later that same night a deputy sheriff from Morgan County logged over 30 calls reporting lights buzzing, hovering, and maneuvering in the night sky. As the long winter nights passed and more sightings were logged, people began to spin theories about the culprits- alien spacecraft never seemed to be considered, these weren’t treated as classical UFOs, instead, the unidentified craft were considered mystery drones.

There was a shortlist of candidates- these mystery drones weren’t hobbyist grade camera rigs, their size, numbers, and flight times suggested at the least a large corporate backing, if not military technology. But refusal statements came almost as quickly as the potential culprits were named- on December 23rd, a spokesman for the U.S. Army claimed there were no known training operations nearby involving drones, and by December 30th, a flurry of governmental departments ranging from the DEA¹ to USGS² to the USAF³ or even just the local DoT⁴ had all denied involvement, alongside a private mapping company and Amazon (who’s brief, boondoggle drone delivery experiments still seem cemented in the mind of the public).

As the new year ticked over, reports continued- from small towns such as Haxtun, CO (pop. 981) to relatively larger cities, such as Kearney, NE (pop. 33,790). Though as sightings continued, things began to tinge hysterical, as Coloradan sheriffs were taken up by a brief search for a ‘control van’ spotted near Sterling, and Nebraska cops field tested ‘space potatoes’ for methamphetamines, later sheepishly admitted to be irrigation-rut filling gel bricks. VICE would run an article calling the reports a ‘classic case’ of mass hysteria, and reports began to turn increasingly fantastical as elements of more traditional UFO lore seeped in, and witness testimonies began to be shoved off to echo chamber Facebook groups, rather than local and national news.

On January 6th, 2021, the state of Colorado launched their Multi-Mission Aircraft, a turboprop plane designed to track wildfires, and searched the skies for 6 hours, turning up nothing despite continuing reports of drones in the areas it flew. That same week a joint task force of some 70 law enforcement, USAF, FBI, and FAA officials was formed to investigate the sightings, but would disband weeks later on January 22nd, citing a sharp dropoff in sightings and inconclusive results. To top things off, the Colorado Department of Public Safety would analyze 23 sightings from January 6th-13th, and all but four were ultimately attributed to commercial aircraft, planets, stars, satellites, atmospheric conditions, or hobbyist-grade drones- a cocktail of explanations I feel like I’m going to need to develop a less wordy shorthand for. Ultimately, as 2021 raged onwards, drones that may or may not exist over some rural areas couldn’t hold their place in the headlines.

I think this sits well alongside our previous post about the Gatwick Drone Incident, showing two similar drone panics on two sides of the ocean. Though, if I were to be persuaded of either one’s legitimacy, I think the open expanses of the American plains and near-southwest could much easier host unregistered drone experiments than suburban London.

1. Drug Enforcement Agency
2. United States Geological Survey
3. United States Air Force
4. Department of Transportation