Viral videos of a 'UFO' in New Jersey really captured a Goodyear blimp

• A Goodyear blimp was mistaken for a UFO in several viral social media posts on Monday.
• A representative for Goodyear confirmed to Insider that the company flew a blimp in New York City and Northern New Jersey on Monday evening.
• A TikTok video showing what the user believed to be a UFO reached four million views in under 24 hours.

Some New Jersey residents thought 2020 had become even more apocalyptic with an unidentified flying object (UFO) sighting. But what many mistook for a flying saucer was just a Goodyear blimp.

On Monday, TikTok user @.babyyjennii posted a video of what she believed to be a UFO on New Jersey's Route 21 highway. Her video showed several others on the highway stopped and standing on the side of the road to photograph the blimp in the sky, which they apparently believed to be a flying saucer.

The video has four million views and more than 600,000 likes as of Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after it was posted.

Confusion over the object in the sky spread on social media, where other videos also went viral on Monday.

A representative for Goodyear confirmed to Insider that the company had flown a blimp in the New York City and Northern New Jersey areas on Monday evening to capture aerial footage of the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants NFL game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

But the UFO concerns spread beyond TikTok. Two Twitter videos each garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

One tweet from Twitter user @DRoyFlor showed the blimp from the highway, but in a subsequent tweet, the user said they knew it was a Goodyear blimp, rather than a UFO.

Another video from @kvngjersey showed the blimp above Teterboro Airport.

The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company is known for flying its blimps to capture aerial sports footage while advertising the company.
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