An unidentified glowing object flying across the sky in Beijing has sparked numerous speculations about UFOs, but experts believe it could be debris from a SpaceX rocket.
Unidentified object in the sky over Beijing on January 14. (Photo: Weibo)
Residents in Beijing and many other locations across China spotted a mysterious flying object on the evening of the past weekend. The unusual object quickly became a trending topic on Chinese social media, generating over 900,000 posts, according to Interesting Engineering.
Witnesses observed and photographed the unidentified flying object around 6 PM local time on January 14. One resident mentioned that the weather in Beijing that day was very clear, with no clouds, and the object emitted a steady glow without flickering. It had three sources of light and was shaped like an isosceles triangle, eventually dissipating like mist and vanishing without a trace.
Many residents in Tianjin, Shanxi, and Shandong also reported seeing UFOs. Witnesses often described the object as a “faint glowing sphere” flying swiftly from west to east without making any noise. Some observers even ruled out the possibility of it being an aircraft since they did not see any flashing lights.
Wang Zhuoxiao, a researcher at the Astronomy Technology Center at Tsinghua University in Beijing, provided a plausible explanation. He suggested that the mysterious object could be remnants of a rocket launch, specifically the latest Falcon 9 rocket deploying a batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
Wang explained that the trajectory of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California took it over northern China at a 53-degree southward angle. He emphasized that after deploying the satellites, the rocket likely released excess fuel, a process that could scatter light and create a cloud around the rocket. The unusual shape observed in the “cloud” could be due to the rocket’s falling motion to release additional fuel.
Another anonymous astronomer at the Beijing Astronomical Observatory also supported this theory. According to him, a similar sighting in northern China on September 13, 2023, was also related to a rocket cloud formed after a launch.
