Onlookers Are Baffled After Mysterious Fireballs Dazzle California Sky

Mysterious Fireballs Illuminate the California Night Sky!

The sky in California witnessed a series of events that left skygazers in awe and wonder. Several onlookers recorded the event and shared videos and pictures on social media platforms, sparking discussions about its origins. A group of burning objects flew across the Californian sky, leaving people puzzled during the late-night hours, with various theories circulating, ranging from meteors to a SpaceX rocket launch that had occurred just six hours earlier.

Onlookers Stood Spellbound

The unknown objects were seen around 1:30 AM Eastern Time and could be spotted from Los Angeles, Temecula, and Orange County as well. A 45-second video showed a group of unidentifiable objects falling across the sky of Southern California and finally fading away as they rubbed against the friction of Earth’s atmosphere. The objects could be seen tending to scatter slightly as they entered further into Earth’s atmosphere. As reported by Fox News , one of the onlookers in the video could be heard saying, "Oh, it was a meteor shower. Yeah, look at that s---! What the hell?"

Exciting Speculations Surrounding It

Initially, people speculated that they were UFOs entering Earth’s ecosystem. Knewz.com noted that there were even theories circulating that the objects had been part of a meteor shower. SpaceX had a successful rocket launch six hours earlier at 7:30 PM from Vandenberg Space Force Base on the Central Coast. Some people on social media assumed that the launch had failed and that the falling objects had been parts of the rocket that had exploded midway. The SpaceX Falcon 9 had been carrying 22 satellites to be placed in lower orbits around Earth, as reported by abc7 .

Remnants of a Chinese Spacecraft

The puzzle surrounding the origins of the burning objects had been settled when experts from the SETI Institute made a post on X stating that the objects were remains of the orbital module of the Chinese Shenzhou, which had been launched around the end of 2022 to carry a group of three astronauts into space. The 3,300-pound module had been expected to enter the Earth’s atmosphere near Los Angeles on Tuesday night around 1:45 AM. According to the New York Post , another independent body, The Aerospace Corporation, had also predicted on its website that part of the Chinese spacecraft would enter Earth that night.

California Witnessed Similar Events in the Past

The sky over California had witnessed a similar event in March 2023 when streaks of light had been seen. It was later revealed that these streaks had come from a Japanese inter-orbit communication system, a communication module that had been launched into space in 2009. According to The Independent , a 310 kg module had been decommissioned in 2020 and, after circling the Earth for nearly three years, had re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over California around 9:30 PM on March 18. The module had been designed to act as a communication link between the ISS Kibo and the Mission Control Center in Tsukuba.