I'm not that interested in the various UFO phenomena, although I get a kick out of listening to Art Bell late at night.

But I caught this linked to one of the news sites. An odd object caught on a news tape.

The people in the story have no idea what they've latched onto, but even someone on the periphery of the paranormal would recognize this item as one of the famous "rods," a phenomenon that seems to be some sort of stick-thing from a few inches to a few feet long that buzzes through the sky at huge speeds, and seems barely there on the physical plane.

The long, cylindrical body with symmetric "appendages" or "flagella" is highly typical of this object. If one could make a paramecium about a foot long, and pump it full of methamphetamines, it would act just like this.

What are they really? Most in my opinion are probably film artifacts, or some weird electronic bug that comes naturally somehow to video cameras. A lot of the pictures are just lines. Big deal. What the rest are, particularly the ones with symmetrical appendages, I have no clue. A website on the subject offers little in hard evidence, but one heck of a lot of fascinating photos.

I find this phenomenon more interesting than most items from the File of Weirdness primarily because it is so unexpected and ubiquitous. If someone was imagining a UFO, a stick with fluttering "wings" would not be the first thing that came to mind. It's also interesting in that unlike most UFO phenomena, it is not set up as part of some huge "conspiracy," but if anything, seems to act like some small critters just out for fun, like hummingbirds.

Logically, of course, given that this is so widespread, one would expect a few dead ones to show up, or some to hit a window or something. The lack of such things speaks against it being real.

Still, it would be amazing if this was really some odd new life form, wouldn't it?