Mystery ‘fireball’ UFO spooks locals in India who claim it could be part of 18-tonne ‘out-of-control’ Chinese space rocket plummeting to Earth
- Witnesses guessed the object was the Chinese rocket, a space ship, or a fireball
- It appeared in the sky in India for seconds during the night before it vanished
- Footage showed the unidentified object pulsing with yellow spheres in the sky
A mystery object seen in the sky in India has left locals baffled, wondering if it was a fireball or part of the Chinese space rocket that crashed in the Indian Ocean last night.
Eyewitnesses described a sparkling object which pulsed in the sky for several seconds before vanishing.
Some speculated the object might have been a spaceship, or even debris from the Chinese rocket, Long March 5B.
A mystery object seen in the sky in India has left locals baffled, wondering if it was a fireball or part of the Chinese space rocket that crashed in the Indian Ocean last night
The 18-tonne rocket reentered Earth’s atmosphere near the Maldives last night, broke upon reentry and crashed into the Indian Ocean.
Footage of the strange fireball showed the bright orange object with yellow spheres appearing to expand and contract in the sky.
Other eyewitnesses speculated the unidentified object was a fireball, burning helium balloon, or a space ship.
Ali Mohammad said: ‘The UFO was extremely bright like a fireball circling around night skies. It was something that I haven’t witnessed my entire life it spooked me’.
In the video, a curious young onlooker can be heard asking her father, ‘is it burning helium balloon or the spacecraft?’
A similar shiny object was found by a Pakistani pilot in January.
He spotted the shiny unidentified object near Rahim Yar Khan while operating an Airbus A-320 from Karachi to Lahore.
In 2012, a luminous flying object was also reported flying over Ladakh in India’s Himalayan border with China.
China’s Long March rocket crashed near the Maldives in the Indian Ocean early on Sunday.
The Long March 5B – comprising one core stage and four boosters – lifted off from China’s Hainan island on April 29 with the unmanned Tianhe module, which contains what will become living quarters on a permanent Chinese space station.
Debris from Chinese rocket launches is not uncommon within China. In late April, authorities in the city of Shiyan, Hubei Province, issued a notice to people in the surrounding county to prepare for evacuation as parts were expected to land in the area.
The empty core stage has been losing altitude since last week, but the speed of its orbital decay remained uncertain due to unpredictable atmospheric variables.
It is one of the largest pieces of space debris to return to Earth, with experts estimating its dry mass to be around 18 to 22 tons.
In 2020, debris from another Long March rocket fell on villages in the Ivory Coast, causing structural damage but no injuries or deaths.
China’s Long March rocket crashed near the Maldives in the Indian Ocean early on Sunday
It is one of the largest pieces of space debris to return to Earth, with experts estimating its dry mass to be around 18 to 22 tons