DeKalb GA News

Thousands of dragonflies descended upon Misquamicut Beach in Westerly, Rhode Island, over the weekend, surprising beachgoers with an unexpected swarm. The event was captured on video and has left many visitors and locals bewildered.

On Saturday, attendees at the popular beach witnessed a sudden influx of dragonflies appearing as if from the ocean. Nicole Taylor, who filmed the incident, described her experience to Channel 3: “One minute everything was calm. The next minute I saw the most dragonflies I’ve ever seen in my life. It lasted for like three minutes, and then they were gone. It was a very strange experience.”

Paula Bellavance, celebrating her 50th birthday at the beach, shared her astonishment with Eyewitness News: “It was weird. It was like there was a couple, and then there was more and then it was just like they were coming from the ocean... you look up and there’s thousands in the air and all around you.”

Joanne Vandal from Enfield also witnessed the phenomenon and told NBC Connecticut: “It was like a black cloud and what started as a couple hundred, was thousands and thousands of them.” She noted that children were frightened by the swarm while others documented it on their phones.

Stephanie Martin recounted to NewsCenter 5 her experience during what she called a “dragonfly apocalypse”: “I was enjoying a nice day at Misquamicut State Beach until we endured a dragonfly apocalypse... They didn’t know where they were going. But they weren’t aggressive or anything like that.”

The swarm lasted between two to four minutes before dissipating without returning for the rest of the day.

Experts have suggested environmental factors as the cause of this unusual event rather than any supernatural reasons. Gale Ridge, an Associate Scientist at Connecticut’s Agricultural Experiment Station, explained to Eyewitness News that these could be green darner dragonflies migrating from Canada due to strong winds pushing them ashore.