Claims that US airspace was shut down because of a party balloon have been popped by new video appearing to show a large, hovering UFO over El Paso, Texas.
An eyewitness driving near El Paso International Airport on Tuesday pulled over to record what they described as a mothership floating above the ground in the distance, which was releasing smaller objects from its underside.
The sighting, shared with crowdsourced UFO-reporting platform Enigma, occurred just hours before a large swath of US airspace was abruptly closed for ‘special security reasons’ at 11.30pm MT on February 10.
The mysterious shut down was originally announced to last for ten days and included all commercial, cargo, and general flights within a ten-mile-wide area roughly five miles southwest of El Paso, from the ground up to 18,000 feet.
However, the chaotic shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was quickly called off, with the Trump Administration changing the story of what triggered the alert multiple times within a matter of hours on Wednesday.
White House officials initially announced the US had taken down a Mexican cartel drone flying across the southern border, only to claim hours later that the object struck by a high-powered laser was a party balloon.
Now, UFO researchers and witnesses in the area have alleged that something other than a balloon or drone was spotted on multiple days near the US-Mexico border before the FAA warning.
‘Looks like the mothership. It’s huge. And there are stuff coming out from the bottom of it and going off to the left a little bit as it landed,’ the driver on Tuesday said.Â
Video taken of an alleged craft hovering over El Paso, Texas was shared by the UFO reporting app Enigma
Magnified images of the craft revealed a large object appearing near the sight of a major FAA shut down which was issued on February 10
According to the witness recording the hovering craft, it appeared on video ‘like a dot’ after moving off far into the distance, but the object was allegedly incredibly large and looked somewhat like ‘a blob.’
Enigma, which allows people to report sightings and share pictures or videos of UFOs on an app, also revealed that two other witnesses submitted strange sightings in the El Paso area, one on February 8 and another at 5.46pm ET on the same day as the FAA shut down.
Both sightings involved what the witnesses described as floating orbs high in the sky which were clearly not normal planes or any type of military aircraft.
‘Every time I use my drones in this area, especially in a certain frequency I always have orbs run by,’ the witness on February 8 reported in a video on the Enigma app.
However, the driver traveling by El Paso International Airport on Tuesday supplied the clearest evidence that what the military encountered was not a simple balloon.
‘They are reporting today that it wasn’t drones but a party balloon! It never ceases to amaze me how stupid they think the public are,’ one commenter on X wrote.
‘I feel like I’ve seen this story before…‘ one person on social media wrote next to a picture of the weather balloon debris the military claimed was actual the Roswell UFO in 1947.
However, many skeptics criticized the video for being so out of focus that it made a clear identification of the object impossible.
The restricted airspace covered a ten-mile-wide area centered roughly five miles southwest of El Paso, extending from the ground up to 18,000 feet
El Paso International Airport handled more than four million travelers in 2024, the most recent year with published statistics
The White House did not mention any sightings of unidentified flying objects, also known as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), in there reports on Wednesday.Â
Officially, the US government and the Pentagon have maintained that there has never been any physical evidence recovered proving UFOs or extraterrestrial beings exist.
Despite that declaration, it is considered highly unusual to close down US airspace under the threat that violators may be shot down. The last time US airspace was shut down for national security reasons was after the September 11 terror attacks.
The FAA also temporarily closed airspace over New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, but that was due to storm damage.Â
Unlike previous restrictions, the El Paso closure blocked all flights over the city, including police and medical helicopters. It is a move rarely, if ever, seen in modern US aviation.
President Trump has said that he is open to full disclosure of all UFO incidents and White House insiders have allegedly claimed Trump already has a speech prepared which addresses what the US government knows about the possibility of alien life.
According to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), multiple witnesses have reported seeing large objects over the US which they could only describe as a ‘mothership.’
In fact, there have been six reports of large motherships, including some witnessing smaller craft surrounding it or flying out of them, since 2022.