The sudden appearance of streaks of lights in the North California sky tonight has caught a lot of attention as people are beating their brains over what it could possibly be.
People across the world in the recent past have witnessed several bizarre or unexplainable happenings up in the air. From a Chinese ‘spy’ balloon in America to eerie red UFO clouds in Turkey just before the deadly earthquake, a lot has been in the news.
Thankfully for all the curious cats out there, an explanation exists for the lights that briefly lit the North California sky up tonight.
What were the lights in sky tonight?
The lights were the trails of a Japanese communications package called ICS-EF, which was reportedly launched to the International Space Station in 2009, according to KCRA.
Astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Jonathan McDowell, explained in a row of tweets what these objects in the night sky were as they boggled people’s minds.
These objects are believed to have orbited the Earth as space junk for three years, before re-entering California at 9:30 pm on March 17.
“This is ICS-EF, a Japanese communications package for sending data between the ISS Kibo module and Mission Control Tsukuba via the Kodama data relay satellite. It was launched to the ISS on the Space Shuttle in 2009 and had a mass of 310 kg,” Jonathan tweeted with a picture of the communication package.
Explaining the lights, he said in another tweet: “It probably almost completely burnt up during reentry, but any small surviving debris may have, at a guess, reached the Yosemite area.”
North Californians thought it was a meteor shower
Many are still clueless about what the lights in the sky tonight were, with others conveniently assuming it to be a meteor shower. Meanwhile, videos of the spectacular night-sky sighting are making rounds rapidly on social media and news channels.
One tweeted: “How many of you saw the meteor shower tonight? Spectacular. A rare night all the way around where my girls saw it. So very cool.”
“Was there supposed to be a meteor shower over Healdsburg tonight? Or what else could this be?” wrote another.
Another asked: “Did anyone else see the meteor shower in California?”
Jokes about aliens flood Twitter
As always, Twitter users were quick to crack jokes about aliens, claiming that the lights in the night sky tonight were in fact UFOs, on which the extraterrestrial beings traveled to Earth.
“Those lights across California were just aliens flying quickly to make sure they made it to the Eras Tour on time,” said one.
Another wrote: “Y’all see the aliens that just flew over California? They know how to enter in style.”
A third user said: “That’s aliens in the UFOs tonight letting us humans know war is coming.”
“UFO sighting in Bay Area California,” tweeted another.
In other news, What chocolate candy factory exploded in Pennsylvania?