Do "Rods" Exist?

Okay, we're going to be using the word "rod" a lot in this post, so why don't we go ahead and get those giggles out on the front-end, shall we? Here.

There. Got it out of your system?

The first time I heard about "rods" - unexplained, insect-like objects appearing on film and in photographs - was probably 3-4 years ago; before that, I had never even heard of this phenomena, but it has really stirred-up some people, including some meteorologists and other prominent intellectuals. Rods appear as long, cylindrical objects that seem to have two sets of wings or "flippers" at either end of their "bodies." They cannot be seen with the naked eye, but appear with some frequency on film and, in a few cases, photographs.

This seemed like a fairly new phenomena and when I heard about it, it was summarily dismissed by both the researcher and the experts he called upon. But the idea has persisted - so much so that History Channel's MonsterQuest devoted an entire episode to it a week or so back and they uncovered some truly remarkable photos going back decades which purported to show rods even then. One photo in particular showed a rod of immense size.

Sorry, I... I'm sorry. Yes, the old photograph showed a huge rod.

More interesting was a short piece of film that clearly showed something shoot across the clouds directly in front of what turned out to be the fastest tornado on record. A meteorologist was the one discussing this particular piece of evidence and he was genuinely convinced that it could not be explained.

Still, I am not convinced. These rods look very much like normal photographic anomalies - akin to waterspots that are often mistaken for "orbs." Just because we have not determined what causes this to occur does not indicate that it is necessarily not a function of the camera or atmosphere. As for the tornado film, I agree that the UFO moves in a direct line and so forth as the meteorologist notes, but am not 100% convinced that it could not be lightning.

I will keep my ear to the ground on this subject, but I will go on record as stating that I do not believe the phenomenon of "rods" to be paranormal in nature.