I'm completely ignorant about flares and their uses. Seen some other videos, and noticed they usually have smoke trails. I presume the lack of them in these videos could be explained by the fact they were filmed from a considerable distance, and the videos are too low quality (as always) to see them.
This video shows flares from several years ago in the Sonoran desert, that also seem to be static and show no smoke trails. Also some are flickering, some are not.
But I'm curious about what would explain some of those questions:
- How are they not moving downward? On a cursory search I learned some flares are held by a parachute, and they fall down slow, but maybe there's other types of flares that rely on more stable means for staying up there for longer.
It occurred to me that their apparent lack of movement could be an illusion. Maybe they are moving, and it's just hard to tell because at times the footage is too shaky, or there's only sky and no frame of reference in it, or it's from too far away that if the flares are falling very slowly you might need longer footage to tell.
- How are some of them moving sideways? Maybe an air current? I also saw one of those sort of blinking.
And I personally would ask, what would they be using flares for? Training demonstrations? There are quite a few other videos of this from other points in time, so this seems to be a recurring thing.