A weird, purple flying QR code made of drones appeared in the sky over London for no obvious reason

• Drones traced weird patterns in the London sky on Wednesday for no clear reason.
• At one point they formed into a QR code linking to the site of the insurance company Beazley.

An unusual sight appeared over London's river Thames on Wednesday night — a flying purple QR code without an immediately obvious explanation.

The code was formed of several hundred drones, which arranged themselves into a few shapes before settling into a large, scannable image, which hovered for around 20 seconds.

—Kieran Corcoran (@kj_corcoran) April 27, 2023

The code was a hyperlink to this URL, a marketing page for the insurance company Beazley.

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Beazley told Insider on Thursday that the drones — 400 of them — were tied to a company event being held at Magazine London, an event space next to the river.

While it made sense to the guests there, other people seeing the drones without much context wouldn't have known what they were.

In an email to Insider, Beazley said the drone show was the largest ever in London for a private event.

They also sent some nice press photos with London's Canary Wharf financial district in the background.

There have been drone shows over the Thames before, usually to mark a big celebration. The city's New Year's Eve celebrations on December 31 in 2021 and 2022 both featured drones.

The drones were also active on Tuesday night, per video posted to Twitter.

Insider also contacted the Port of London Authority, which regulates drone flights over the Thames. A spokesperson said they were aware of the drone flight and would be able to provide more information on Friday.

Flying QR codes are not a frequent sight in the UK, but have been deployed elsewhere in the world, including in Shanghai, China, in 2021.

April 27, 2023: This story was updated to include new information from Beazley explaining what the drones were doing.