My theory about the rods has always been...
...they are a hoax. Closer to the camera and therefore smaller and slower than as advertised.
It started out as a Kirby vacuum cleaner, beater bar (wooden or metal bar with spiraling pattern of brush). Ejected at high speed from some pneumatic device.
Then they started to modify their appearance by pulling out some of the brushes, and then to outright manufacture ones that didn't quite look like part of a vacuum cleaner.