ok somebody explain the Lubbock Lights to me without saying 'plovers'

Been going down a rabbit hole on the 1951 Lubbock Lights (Texas Tech, those four professors who saw a V of lights go over their backyard like 20 times that summer). And every single 'debunk' lands on the same thing: it was birds. Plovers. The streetlights reflecting off their oily white bellies. Car……