Although the fireballs are regularly seen on the river during the Phayanak festival, a 2002 iTV documentary showed Laotian soldiers firing tracer rounds into the air across the river from the festival. Skeptic Brian Dunning suggests that it would be impossible for anyone across the half-mile river to hear a gunshot because it would take 2.5 seconds for the sound to travel to the spectators, and by then the crowd watching has already noticed the light and started cheering, drowning out the sound when it would reach them.[4]