The internet has been abuzz this week following the sighting of a “UFO” in the skies over Beijing this past Sunday, with netizens posting photos and videos of what appeared to be a glowing yellow ball of light flickering in the night. Turns out, it might just have been SpaceX’s rocket.
People in Beijing and across northern China witnessed “small balls of light” and speeding “cloud-like objects”, according to Sixth Tone and other media. Sixth Tone says the phenomenon has since gone viral on Weibo, with the topic generating 180 million views as of Monday.
The publication cites Zhu Jin, a researcher at the Beijing Planetarium and editor of Amateur Astronomer as attributing the phenomenon to a Starlink satellite rocket launched by American tech company SpaceX undergoing passivation as it flew over China.
Passivation, according to Zhu, is when a rocket disposes of unused fuel and high-pressure gas to prevent explosions or other threats to the satellite.
This isn’t the first time a UFO has been sighted in Beijing. In 2018, a UFO was spotted over Western Beijing and areas of northeastern China, with images showing what appears to be an object with a cone-shaped funnel leading a corkscrew “tail”.
Official sources like People’s Daily were quick to point out it was a cloud and not at all a rocket or other manmade object, which no one believed.
Earlier yet, in 2010, a UFO appeared in the night skies over Beijing in September of that year, causing a Shandong Airlines flight traveling from Beijing Capital International Airport to be diverted.
Was this UFO sighting just rocket passivation or something else? Are aliens regularly observing the goings on in Beijing? Let us know in the comments!
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Images: Weibo
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