'Could that be a UFO?' Mysterious light moving across the night sky stuns residents in a Chinese city
A mysterious beam of light has been spotted sweeping across the night sky in front of stunned onlookers in a Chinese city.
Footage shows the bright light moving at a relatively slow speed above a residential area on Friday night in north-eastern China's Heilongjiang Province.
The unusual scene, amassing over 1.7million views on Chinese Twitter-like Weibo, has been likened by curious social media users to an illuminating UFO.
Footage filmed on Friday night shows the bright flash of light moving at a relatively slow speed above a residential area on Friday night in north-eastern China's Heilongjiang Province
The blazing object was spotted at around 10.05pm on October 30 by residents in the city of Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang Province.
In the footage filmed by a spectator, the bright dot beaming in a shade of yellow, followed by a trail of what seemed to be flames, as it swept across the night sky.
Shocked by what he saw, the onlooker can be heard shouting: 'Look at that big flame!'
The moving light was visible for about one and a half minutes, the resident told Pear Video, before it suddenly dissolved and disappeared in the darkness.
Curious netizens rushed to make their speculations about the mysterious drop of brightness as the footage quickly attracted over 1.7million views on Weibo since being shared on Sunday.
One viewer wrote: 'Could that be a UFO?'
Another commenter said: 'The aliens are landing on Earth!'
Despite the web users' theory of 'a visitor from outer space', experts suspected that the rare scene could be a fireball, a type of extremely bright meteor that could even be observed in daylight.
Despite the web users' theory of 'a visitor from outer space', experts suspected that the rare scene could be a fireball, a type of extremely bright meteor that could even be observed in daylight. In this stock photo, a glowing meteor as it enters the Earth's atmosphere
'It might seem that the looked like a visitor from outer space, but it's still very confusing,' said Liu Chuanhao, secretary-general of Heilongjiang Provincial Astronomical Society.
'But its speed was not as fast as the average fireball meteors, so we need to look into it further,' said Mr Liu.
The expert also suggested that the light could be space debris — fragments and elements of human-made objects including spaceships and abandoned vehicles — re-entering into Earth's atmosphere.