Jan 17, 2023
Written By [Christopher Sharp](https://www.liberationtimes.com/?author=610434e320e3e945538177b1)
Written by [Christopher Sharp](https://twitter.com/ChrisUKSharp) \- 17 January 2023
Following a media whirlwind, an investigation into unexplained lights seen in Wisconsin by multiple witnesses on 1 and 2 December 2022 has tested claims that a local Christmas light show run by the Flanders family was responsible.
And following extensive testing, including a visit to the Flanders’ property, the results show that the light show is a possible explanation, but the maths does not make sense, according to investigators. However, an atmospheric anomaly could potentially provide explanations as to how the Christmas lights travelled up to around 11 miles.
[The Flanders Family Christmas Light Show, held in Belgium, Wisconsin](https://flandersfamilychristmaslightshow.com/), took place almost seven miles away from video footage taken from a Fredonia resident, a former police officer named Ken, who filmed unknown lights from his cornfield. And another four miles beyond Ken’s location on Wallace Lake Road, another witness named Kim, a salon owner from West Bend, recorded similar lights from the roadside.
Lead investigators, Discovery TV host Ben Hansen and researcher Brittany Barbieri, were able to coordinate experiments, and found that similar light effects could be observed 1.5, 3, 4.5 and 5.5 miles from the Flanders’ property under similar low-cloud conditions.
Hansen told Liberation Times:
“Parts of the light movement used in one of the songs in the Christmas show, the timing, and the direction to the Flanders’ home do seem to line up nicely with the December 1st event.”
However, the lights failed to reach the distances the lights were seen to travel at in both witness videos.
Although prosaic explanations remain likely, including the Flanders’ lights, Hansen feels there are still significant variables that remained unanswered. He commented:
“We also have witnesses that have been able to see the Flanders light show out to almost 6 miles, but we also made a very significant discovery through this testing.
>
“There’s an extraordinary difference between seeing the beams of the Christmas show 6 miles in the distance where the observer can only detect that something very small and dim is occurring on the cloud base near the horizon, versus experiencing well-defined lights intensely lit and passing overhead from that distance.
>
“At this point, the math simply doesn’t support that the technology in use was capable of this unless there was some sort of very uncommon weather phenomenon that night that amplified the effect.
>
“We have to be open to the possibility that there was another light projection closer by and from another location. It may not seem important to some people that we get this right if it’s just a display of spotlights, but it is important to the community and to those concerned with the safety issues involved.”
Hansen explained that if the Flanders lights were to reach the distances required, if visible, then they would form elongated spots at an estimated one-quarter of a mile wide and one-and-a-quarter-mile long. Placed side by side like we see in Ken’s video, that translates to the five lights spanning a distance of over eight miles, which according to Hansen is very unlikely.
_Above – According to Hansen,_ to reach the distances required, the Flanders lights (if visible) would form elongated spots at an estimated one-quarter of a mile wide and one-and-a-quarter-mile long.
Liberation Times understands that according to formulas used by the lighting industry, the luminosity produced by [the Flanders’ lights](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002515187702.html?srcSns=sns_Copy&spreadType=socialShare&bizType=ProductDetail&social_params=20763534814&aff_fcid=58d8167b3f4740a1bec11ecb609e131d-1672236455279-01896-_mtGS0sq&tt=MG&spm=a2g0s.imconversation.0.0.1c783e5fvb834J&aff_fsk=_mtGS0sq&aff_platform=default&sk=_mtGS0sq&aff_trace_key=58d8167b3f4740a1bec11ecb609e131d-1672236455279-01896-_mtGS0sq&shareId=20763534814&businessType=ProductDetail&platform=AE&terminal_id=623ac292bb4542ed9e731ff5ee32adbe&afSmartRedirect=y&gatewayAdapt=4itemAdapt) would be reduced to zero from the witness locations.
Marc Dantonio, chief photo and video analyst from the Mutual UFO Network scrutinised Hansen’s analysis and speculated that an atmospheric anomaly could provide a possible explanation:
“He \[Hansen\] used a very well-known approach which was the Pythagorean theorem to calculate a slant angle and the approach was sound. He used METAR data to get cloud base at the time and was able to construct proper triangles which to do the calculations.
>
“I also felt he was trying to show scientifically that since the lights flashed and moved in the exact same cadence as the lights on the Flanders’ home, it was likely an atmospheric anomaly that allowed them to be seen from such a long distance. The problem was that the brightness of the lights appeared to preclude the ability to see them 8 miles away or so.
>
“One other additional thought I had addressed his concern that the lights’ lumen value was too low to be seen from such a distance. While possibly true, it is possible that the light brightness was enhanced by the atmospheric anomaly. The light energy can’t be made brighter and more energetic than at the source of course but because of the beam spread coupled with the possible anomaly in the air, the reflections could have each been seen through more water vapor droplets and summed to a brightness that could be seen.
>
“The same brightness being reflected by more droplets in other words might be visible. Kind of like seeing a searchlight beam in the sky but not being able to see the light source. If those ‘beams’ for lack of a better term were angled more directly toward the observer then it’s possible they might not be visible in clear air but visible at the cloud base where they would be reflecting off of more droplets making them visible to the eye.
>
“It is just a theory but it could possibly explain this.”
In response to Dantonio’s atmospheric anomaly theory, Ben Hansen told Liberation Times:
“If this involves a weather phenomenon we’re not familiar with, we’re equally excited to learn about that too. In this case, we would also have to accept that the situation was a perfect fluke occurrence because the Christmas show has been running multiple times every night for over a month and in all kinds of weather conditions, but the lights have never been seen again from that location.”
The searchlight/spotlight theory had been the lead candidate to explain the mystery from the start of investigations, but the Flanders’ lights had been seen as an unlikely source due to the distances involved and lack of replicability from the witness locations.
The store owner/distributor in China has claimed the beams project for 1,000 meters, which is 0.6 miles. But due to inconsistencies which were provided by different manufacturers of the lights, Hansen coordinated with the Flanders family to test the exact lights used in their show.
Data from the test was then given by Hansen to Matt Ford, an entertainment lighting expert, who has designed lighting for major network television shows for over twenty years and is very familiar with modern-day lighting equipment and their optical performance.
Following computer analysis, Ford concluded that it was very unli
*[Read full article at Liberation Times]*