Stunned residents capture strange lights streaking across night sky

04 April 2024 , 07:45

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Residents were stunned at the strange lights streaking through the sky

Scientists have explained the cause of strange lights streaking through the night sky after they were captured by stunned residents.

The bizarre streaks of lights were spotted over California at around 1.30am on Tuesday morning and recorded by residents in Sacramento and San Diego. Videos showed what appeared to be a number of objects hurling over the area with many believing it was possibly a cluster of meteorites, or a type of object falling and breaking up as it plummeted towards the Earth.

Dozens of concerned residents took to social media to express their concern with some believing it could be debris from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Monday evening at around 7.30pm. Some even speculated that the strange lights they witnessed racing through the sky above their homes could have been a UFO.

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Residents took to social media to ask what the light was

However, it turns out the mysterious lights were actually Chinese space junk. More specifically, the remnants of a Chinese spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere, according to experts.

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Astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell confirmed in a social post it was nothing more than the orbital module of China’s Shenzhou 15 spacecraft. The Shenzhou 15 has been floating in orbit for more than a year after launching three astronauts to China’s Tiangong space station in November 2022 for a six-month mission, Space.Com said.

The Shenzhou orbital craft, which weighs 3,300 pounds, provides extra room for astronauts in space. The module had been predicted to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere early Tuesday morning.

It comes just weeks after an object fell from the sky piercing through the roof and two stories of a family's home in Naples, Florida. The round-shaped object weighing almost two pounds is believed to be a piece of debris from the International Space Station.

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Experts have now explained what the strange lights were (Jenna Kushi / SWNS)

Jenna Kushi caught the bizarre scene on her phone at 1.30am (Jenna Kushi / SWNS)

A Nest home security camera recorded the crash's sound at 2.34 pm local time (19.34 UTC) on March 8, matching the time when the US Space Command detected the reentry of space debris from the space station. At that time, the debris was over the Gulf of Mexico, heading towards southwest Florida.

The space junk consisted of depleted batteries from the ISS attached to a cargo pallet, which was meant to return to Earth in a controlled manner. However, due to several delays, the cargo pallet missed its scheduled departure, forcing NASA to jettison the batteries from the space station in 2021, causing an unguided reentry, per the European Space Agency.

Alejandro Otero, whose son was in the house when the object came crashing down, told WINK News: "It was a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all. Something ripped through the house and then made a big hole in the floor and the ceiling. When we heard that, we were like, impossible, and then immediately I thought a meteorite.

"I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage. I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt."

Liam Buckler