The rods you were originally referring to are A) Insects flying close to the lense, or B) Some unknown creature that we haven't been able to
study.
Since A has been covered, I'll cover B... and see if I can find some links. Firstly, there have been MANY pictures taken of rods to prove they
aren't just insects. They are kinda like a foot-long balloon with little fins along the side and are very hard to see. People who have reported
seeing a rod stationary say they make a loud 'pop' when they take off. Also it is reported that they are about as fragile as a soap bubble, and this
is why no scientists have been able to capture one for study and there are no corpses. Last I knew nobody had even a clue as to what they were, other
than what I have explained.
BTW, they used high-speed cameras to capture the rods withoput them blurring... the best pic I've seen was about a dozen flying around the opening of
a cavern/sinkhole.
These aren't quite like the Rods I've seen in other pics, but this guy took enough
pics from different angles for a person to actually comprehend that it isn't a bird
Here is a good place to start checking out rods.
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Now, the second rods you were talking about (the ones the Gov wants to use) is actually a weapon that shoots (or will shoot) (aluminum?) rods at a
high velocity. There are several recent threads on ATS about this... it's called "Rods From God".
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One last note... some of the reported UFO craft that are cigar-shaped are often referred to as 'rods', and the lifeform (energyform?) Rods are often
referred to in UFO context. To be able to do a decent search you have to weed out all the actual UFO stuff. Rods are simply an energy or life (Energy
Lifeform... don't understand why people think that life HAS to be made of matter, but they still believe in Ethereal life such as angels and souls).