Army claims flares are behind strange Gympie lights but witnesses disagree

A former police officer has captured wild video footage of multiple lights forming patterns and blinking in and out above state forest west of Gympie. Watch the video:

Video footage of orange lights in the skies above the Gympie region has sparked plenty of interest and speculation in recent weeks, with more video emerging this week.

Kilkivan General Store owner and former police officer Katy McCallum shared multiple images of glowing orbs appearing to hover in the sky over Brooyar State Forest, in the Blacksnake mountain range between Kilkivan and Widgee.

Ms McCallum said the lights had been appearing for years above a hill about 8km from the highest vantage point on her 350ha property.

An ADF range control officer said the lights were caused by the army “sporadically” firing off “illumination rounds” at Camp Kerr near Wallu, on the Cooloola Coast, about 55km northeast of Blacksnake Mountain.

These flares dropped at a very slow rate and depending on the angle they could appear to hover, he said. They were never fired after 9pm, and no more would now be fired until February 2026.

But Ms McCallum said she had been seeing the lights for years, and that flares did not hover in the sky, form set patterns and blink in and out, which these appeared to do.

This photo was taken on November 30, 2025 in the sky over Brooyar State Forest, in the Blacksnake mountain range between Kilkivan and Widgee. Katy McCallum described their movement as “completely ad hoc”, and said they could pose a danger to pilots. Picture: Katy McCallum.

Flare launches also required a launch site and personnel, and left visible burn scars, which Ms McCallum said she ruled out in a daylight helicopter flight a day after “the first night we saw a big display in June 2022”.

Even the pilot was “bamboozled”, she said.

Ms McCallum said there were about 50 of the mysterious lights on that occasion.

“If they were flares, we would hear them, and they would drop down.

“The army is not dropping hundreds of flares.

“Anyone who says they’re flares has no idea what they’re talking about.

“We have seen them come up from the ground, they light the trees.

“No one knows what they are.”

Ms McCallum described their movement as “completely ad hoc”.

“They move to the side, move down, move up, float down and drop,” she said, 50-100m above the mountain top.

“It’s like all these suns have gone up.”

Katy McCallum ran as a One Nation candidate for Gympie in the 2024 Queensland election.

Ms McCallum said the lights also fade in, then out over long periods of time, usually starting from around 5.30pm.

Sometimes smaller “baby lights” dropped away from the main orbs, she said.

Ms McCallum said she was concerned the apparent objects could pose a risk to pilots.

“What happens if they collide? It’s crazy. No one wants to talk about it.”

Others have corroborated strange sightings in the Gympie region, from Tiaro to Glenwood.

Conventional explanations, from flares to light-up balloons, and even Starlink satellites, do not seem to explain the behaviour of the lights, as reported by multiple watchers.

Originally published as Army claims flares are behind strange Gympie lights but witnesses disagree