This footage showing two strange points of light in the night sky in a remote region that slowly expand before quickly disappearing, sparking online speculation about what they might be.
The two short videos of the lights that either left a trail as they blazed through the night sky or sent out a beam depending on your point of view were recorded by two unnamed friends who had reportedly gone out fishing near Beijing, China’s capital, on the evening of 13th September.
Phone footage shows the two distinctive light sources glowing in the sky and getting brighter by the second.
Then, strangely, they fade into one big blur just seconds later before they disappear into a pale mist.
The lights were reportedly spotted on the same night in many other parts of northern China, including the Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Tianjin provinces.
Many residents were apparently sure the mysterious sight was a UFO, adding that it vanished just as they were about to snap photos of it.
Some sceptical online users even suggested the object disappeared because it might have sensed the cameras after the images were shared on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.
One user titled ‘Mr. Nangang’ commented: “I also saw it in Zhangye, Gansu.”
Another user titled ‘An Xiaobai loves to sing’ wrote: “I also saw it yesterday [Wed], in Jinshui District, Zhengzhou.”
And user ‘Wandering 2002’ said: “It is very strange that most parts of the country can see it at the same time. It must be very far away from us and it is very big.”
The following day, Wang Kechao, the head of popular science at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated that what many people were seeing was the exhaust from a spacecraft’s propulsion, which, when reflected by sunlight in high altitudes, formed a contrail cloud.
Wang added that it was not an astronomical phenomenon but rather a result of human space activities.
