Video glitches...I think you may have called it correctly if it's true these things have only shown up on video...I don't have the time or inclination to do an exhaustive check of all the pictures. However, the objects that appear to react to their environment, such as this one, make such a glitch as an explanation more unlikely.

I wonder if an electronics expert would immediately identify these as a particular bug in the technology?

If they are critters, one would think that non-video observers, like the jumpers in the link above, would see them with the naked eye. And where are all the dead ones? The ones smacked into skyscraper windows? These things apparently move at hundreds of miles an hour. Short of possessing retrorockets, I don't see them as very maneuverable at these speeds.

What makes this particular phenomenon interesting to me is that as far as I can see, NO current explanation for the rods holds up logically. Fun!