Soon after the footage was released to the public, a large number of people contacted the "Santa Fe New Mexican" and Auslander proposing various theories on what the object was. Some thought the object might be ball lightning; others were convinced they could see a face in the image. One woman who claimed to be a spiritual reader said she saw five separate spirits in the video and another person advised the journalist to consult a "reputable channeler". "The New Mexican" website logged thousands of hits for the video. The video was later uploaded to YouTube and was viewed more than 50,000 times within a couple of days, reaching the top 15 videos on the site at that time. This drew hundreds of additional e-mails from people to the news outlet.