You may have to squint, but the two small white spheres seen high in the sky above Kansas City are visible in this photo tweeted out by the National Weather Service.
CNN  — 

For a few hours on Thursday evening, people in Kansas City thought they had a bona fide “X-Files” case on their hands.

High in the sky above the city, two small white spheres seemed to just be floating above the clouds.

What the heck were they?

Folks in the Midwestern city didn’t call up the special FBI agents from the fictional 90s TV show for answers about these UFOs.

They went to the media.

CNN affiliate KMBC reported numerous calls from viewers seeking an explanation. Joe Lauria, a meteorologist at WDAF, another CNN affiliate, said the strange objects could be part of Project Loon. That’s the Google project that seeks to bring the internet to rural and remote areas by launching huge balloons into the air and beaming down a signal. But the station later reported that “a meteorologist who works for Project Loon” nixed that theory.

The National Weather Service in Kansas City also weighed in.

“We honestly have no explanation for the floating objects over Kansas City,” the weather service said in a tweet. Well, that’s not particularly helpful. But at least the weather service included a photo of the sky and the two mysterious orbs with the tweet.

KMBC later reported that the mystery orbs may be part of a flight test for the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which launched three balloons from Cumberland, Maryland, on Monday night.

The feds wonder, too

People just weren’t talking about UFOs in the Midwest. They discussed them in the nation’s capital, too. And not just anybody. We’re talking military officials and lawmakers. Officials from the Navy met with some US senators, including the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, during a classified briefing Wednesday about a series of reported encounters by the US Navy with unidentified aircraft.

Several pilots told The New York Times about multiple encounters with UFOs with no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes. And back in April, the Navy introduced guidelines for its pilots to report unexplainable events so the military can keep track of what may, or may not, be happening.

A Navy official told CNN at the time that the Navy does not believe aliens have been flying around US airspace.

CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi and Zachary Cohen contributed to this story