By MATTHEW BULTMAN, JOHNSON NEWSPAPERS

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a UFO? The Internet has been abuzz with reports of unidentified flying objects over the North Country in recent weeks.

Six reports of mysterious light formations circling high in the skies, from Malone to Hogansburg to Brasher, have been compiled by the National UFO Reporting Center since Jan. 11.

“I never in my life expected to see something like this,” an anonymous user who identified herself as a Hogansburg woman posted on the center’s website after seeing what she described as three orange fireballs flying next to one another.

“Their motion was like that of several spotlights such as would be seen in Hollywood,” she reported Jan. 12.

Others reported similar accounts, all in the early night time sky between Jan. 11 and Jan. 18.

“I saw those lights last night. FREAKED ME OUT,” a person who said he or she was from Canton posted Jan. 19 on Topix.

But, unfortunately for believers in the extraterrestrial, there may be a very earthly explanation for the phenomenon. According to Lt. Col. Fred Tomaselli, spokesman for the New York Air National Guard, pilots from a pair of nearby posts were practicing night missions the week of the reported sightings.

“It is highly likely that it was the F-16s out of Vermont or the F-15s out of Massachusetts doing night training,” he said.

The first round of Burlington training began Jan. 10 and lasted through Jan. 12, according to a press release, the same nights as the first reports of strange lights hovering in the sky.

The second round of night missions began Jan. 17 and ended Jan. 20, the same dates as three more of the sightings. While it was not certain, it is possible the reported UFOs were simply fighter jets that have been taking off and landing in South Burlington after dark, said Lt. Col. Lloyd Goodrow, spokesman for the Vermont Air National Guard.

“We do a lot of our training in the Adirondacks,” he said.

According to the officials from the Air National Guard, there is a medium altitude military training area near Massena as aircraft approach Fort Drum.

Flights from a number of posts use the space for training missions, making it difficult to know which facility the jets were actually from.

“As it is a designated military training airspace, it would be just about anyone,” Mr. Goodrow said.

While state police haven’t recorded any recent calls questioning the lights, Mr. Tomaselli said the Air National Guard has fielded a number of questions in recent years from North Country residents looking for answers.

Each fighter jet is equipped with blinking strobe lights, he said, an explanation for the hovering lights that have sparked so much interest lately.

“When they are maneuvering at night, there’s no depth perception, so it can look pretty interesting,” Mr. Tomaselli said.

Alleged appearances of UFOs are not uncommon throughout New York. According to the UFO reporting center, the state features the fourth-highest number of sightings in the country, with 2,784 reports dating back to the 1930s.

And there is an average of 25 UFO sightings reported each year across the North Country, James G. Bouck, New York state director of the Mutual UFO Network, said during a 2010 visit to Potsdam.