Strange cluster of lights spotted in Hawaii skies over the weekend. What is it?
If surprises were competitive sports, 2020 would win! After a raging pandemic, natural disasters driven by climate change, and strange sightings, 2020 has been weird in all ways possible.
Something that recently happened in Hawaii baffled citizens. People saw mysterious lights booming across the night sky, confusing many, and providing a backbone to a classic case of mass hysteria laden with conspiracy theories and bizarre assumptions.
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While many jumped the gun and called it a UFO, or a potential alien attack, many thought it was a military attack from outside.
And while sentiments of panic rang high over the weekend in the region, scientists figured out what the bright lights were. The lights were spotted parading across the skies on Saturday night.
Watch below:
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A witness told a local news broadcaster KHON what they saw in the sky, and claimed to have been “freaking out”.
Kuuipo Kanawaliwali, the witness filmed the raging lights, which they thought was simply ”eerie”.
“I started videotaping and when they got closer.. I start freaking out because I’m like, ‘Oh, what in the world is this?’”
Another witness also shared what they saw with KHON, claiming they didn’t “know what it was”.
“Mysterious lights in night sky baffle Hawaii residents” https://t.co/tuOLb0xwjJ
Their cover story so far is that it’s a Chinese rocket booster from 2008. Only space junk.
But LOOK… You can clearly see a large Craft with blinking lights, flying in a way to be seen by crowds. pic.twitter.com/xRPCK2z3AH
— Kab (@Kabamur_Taygeta) October 27, 2020
”We didn’t know what it was, where it came from. It just appeared. It was actually (a) very eerie, eerie feeling”, Sheri English told KHON.
And while netizens fuelled rumour packed statements claiming it was most definitely the aliens, or a military invasion, a scientist told a local news organisation what it exactly was.
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According to John O’Meara, the chief scientist at WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the light emanated not from aliens, or from the military, but actually from a rocket booster. O’Meara told Maui Now that it was indeed a rocket booster which caused the glowing lights in the sky, which were used to launch a Venezuelan communications satellite in 2008.
It became visible after all these years owing to the decay it had undergone in the Earth’s atmosphere. After all the damage, it reentered the Pacific, after being slowed down due to slowed capability.
The scientist, however, acknowledged the uncanny degree of the light say, claiming that it is not unusual for space junk to fall from the sky. But in usual circumstances, it does not produce such a sprawling light show. According to him, we got ”lucky” for it was visible to the human eye.
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