Many people took to social media to share photos and videos, speculating that the bright lights could be meteorites, cometary debris or spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin.
But given the controversy caused by the sighting, experts said the most likely explanation is that it is the remains of a Chinese rocket that was launched into space in early June.
José María Madiedo of the Andaluz Institute of Astrophysics said the upper stage of the Long Marcha-2F rocket, which was launched into orbit as part of a mission to the new Tiangong Space Station, had re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.
It then broke into several fragments that became incandescent, causing a series of fireballs to be seen above Malaga, Seville, Huelva and Granada.
One of the witnesses recorded the wreckage lighting up the night sky over Fuengirola shortly after midnight on Tuesday morning.
Astronomers said the fireballs would also be visible much further north, in places like Toledo, Madrid and Valladolid.
Madiedo added that the rocket debris moved northeast over Tetouan, Morocco, before continuing over the Mediterranean.
But there were many Internet users who did not believe the version offered by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, pointing out that the mysterious object was moving at an insanely fast and horizontal speed, very different from the behavior of what the remains of a rocket should be . 🇧🇷
I just recorded this in the sky of Seville. Does anyone know if it’s a fleeting star XL or excursion aliens? pic.twitter.com/KTnESSAOtj
—gerardo tecé (@gerardotc) June 20, 2022
And also in New Zealand
And as if that weren’t enough, the sighting of Spain came just days after another strange phenomenon in the skies, this time over New Zealand.
A mysterious spiral formation of light in the night sky has sparked all kinds of rumors, including the possibility of an alien invasion.
However, Professor Richard Easther, a physicist at the University of Auckland, offered a much simpler answer. He explained that the mysterious spiral came from a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster that had just launched a satellite into space.
As the rocket rotated to release its fuel, it created a trail of vapor that reflected sunlight and produced a visible blue swirl that witnesses said moved across the night sky.
The spiral lit up the sky over Nelson, a town on the tip of New Zealand’s South Island, and moved 750km south to Stewart Island at around 7:30pm on Sunday.
The alleged two-stage rocket launched early Sunday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, US.
It should also be added that this is not the first time that a similar phenomenon has appeared in our skies. Several places around the world have experienced strange events in the sky and both the mysterious object in Spain and the unexplained light in New Zealand are the latest additions to this curated list.
Maybe astronomers are right, and it’s the remains of rockets, or it could be that their origin is extraterrestrial. But there is a third possibility, and that is that they are related to an interstellar anomaly.
During a recent study of the universe’s expansion rate, NASA researchers discovered “something strange” happening in the cosmos that cannot be explained by modern science.
What do you think about all these mysterious phenomena that are happening in our skies? Rockets, aliens or space anomalies?
Discussion about this post