2022-06-10 - McGaheysville, VA - Other

At the time I spotted this unusual flying thing, I thought it was a tiny beetle that hovered and zigzagged sharply like a hummingbird.

I am a 24/7 caregiver and am very busy all day long. I take a few minutes each afternoon to scatter peanuts, etc under a few trees for the birds that come to visit our forested backyard each day. I love nature, including bugs, so I was fascinated when I saw what appeared to be a very small greenish-brown beetle, HOVERING IN PLACE like a hummingbird, between me and an oak tree as I was tossing some peanuts. I stopped to stare at it intensely from 24-30” away. I watched it do some small, lightening-quick zigzag moves and then return to hover in its original spot for maybe 30 seconds. It didn’t change its position in space when I slowly approached and stood maybe 16” from it to get a closer look at its body. I noticed its color and shape were similar to a Japanese beetle, only it had a rounded oval top side and a flat bottom with what appeared to be several pairs of short legs. It was about the size of a black bean sliced in half lengthwise. I watched it for several minutes as I threw peanuts under that tree. It seemed to be just an unusual bug that I needed to look up later online. I wished I had my cell phone with me bc I think I could’ve gotten a photo as it wasn’t frightened by my presence. I also did not fear it bc it didn’t behave aggressively. However, it did behave strangely! It mostly hovered in one place under that tree while I was there for about 5 minutes. I was watching it intently, and it seemed like it was watching me as well. It stayed in one place for about 10 seconds and then would extremely quickly dart (or zigzag) in different directions, up-down and right-left, for a few seconds. It was a cloudy afternoon and I was standing in the shade of many trees out back as I was watching this little guy move around. It was dark green and brown, and very small. Yet, I was easily able to follow its unpredictable movements with my eyes. It makes me now think that I recall seeing a very faint trail behind it as it moved at high speed, but I can’t say for sure. I started to move on with my wildlife chores after lingering by that tree for about 5 mins, but then turned abruptly to briefly play with one of our cats. After giving Mr. Boots a little attention, I looked around to see if my little friend had left that tree. His oval body was a little shiny so he stood out while hovering, and I could see he had simply moved to another side of the tree, He was still just 4’ or 5’ from where I stood at that time. As I caught sight of him again, he flew closer to me, but I really had no more time to stand there and study it. I never imagined he or it might be anything other than an insect until I was telling my husband about it tonight after dinner. Its movement was totally silent and so strange, even for a hummingbird, I think! When I tried to find an insect online that moved like a hummingbird, all I found was info about a few types of a much larger moth. No hovering, zigzagging beetles! That’s when I started to reconsider my assumptions and realized it could possibly be an alien object despite its very small size. It may have been something alien to Earth studying me as I was studying it, perhaps, observing my reactions to its various crazy patterns of movement that made no sense to me, observing my feeding the birds and squirrels, playing lovingly with my cat, putting fresh water in a nearby birdbath. Who knows? I’m going to talk to an entomologist about this little guy to see if such a beetle might actually exist in nature on our planet. Right now, I don’t believe it was an insect anymore, which is why I’m using valuable time to write and submit this report..