In cryptozoology and ufology, "rods" (also known as "skyfish", "air rods", or "solar entities") are elongated visual artifacts appearing in photographic images and video recordings.

Most optical analyses to date have concluded that the images are insects moving across the frame as the photo is being captured, although cryptozoologists and ufologists claim that they are paranormal in nature.

Robert Todd Carroll (2003), having consulted an entomologist (Doug Yanega), identified rods as images of flying insects recorded over several cycles of wing-beating on video recording devices. The insect captured on image a number of times, while propelling itself forward, gives the illusion of a single elongated rod-like body, with bulges.^[1]

A 2000 report by staff at "The Straight Dope" also explained rods as such phenomena, namely tricks of light which result from how (primarily video) images of flying insects are recorded and played back, adding that investigators have shown the rod-like bodies to be a result of motion blur, if the camera is shooting with relatively long exposure times.^[2]

The claims of these being extraordinary creatures, possibly alien, have been advanced by either people with active imaginations, or hoaxers.^[1][2][a]

In August 2005, China Central Television (CCTV) aired a two-part documentary about flying rods in China. It reported the events from May to June of the same year at Tonghua Zhenguo Pharmaceutical Company in Tonghua City, Jilin Province, which debunked the flying rods. Surveillance cameras in the facility's compound captured video footage of flying rods identical to those shown in Jose Escamilla's video. Getting no satisfactory answer to the phenomenon, curious scientists at the facility decided that they would try to solve the mystery by attempting to catch these airborne creatures. Huge nets were set up and the same surveillance cameras then captured images of rods flying into the trap. When the nets were inspected, the "rods" were no more than regular moths and other ordinary flying insects. Subsequent investigations proved that the appearance of flying rods on video was an optical illusion created by the slower recording speed of the camera.^[3]

After attending a lecture by Jose Escamilla, UFO investigator Robert Sheaffer wrote that "some of his 'rods' were obviously insects zipping across the field at a high angular rate" and others appeared to be "appendages" which were birds' wings blurred by the camera exposure.^[4]

Various paranormal interpretations of this phenomenon appear in popular culture. One of the more outspoken proponents of rods as alien life forms was Jose Escamilla, who claimed to have been the first to film them on March 19, 1994, in Roswell, New Mexico, while attempting to film a UFO. Escamilla later made additional videos and embarked on lecture tours to promote his claims.^[1]

• Optical phenomena
• Orb (optics)

• Jose Escamilla's "Rods" Video Sequences
• Dunning, Brian (19 October 2006). "Skeptoid #3: Rods: Flying Absurdities". Skeptoid. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
• Famous video of "rods" at the Cave of the Swallows
• Detailed video analysis