I saw one of these at night about a week before; I think it was on the I-93 off ramp just past Bunker Hill CC / Prison Point Bridge.
At night it was clear what these were from a distance. In the day time, looking at them at an angle and from 15-20 ft below, they just looked like electronics packages where ones shouldn’t be. So the first say five minutes of the overreaction was forgivable. But once they got up there and got a look at it, they doubled down.