EXPLAINED: What was the strange 'UFO' light in skies over Ireland on Wednesday?
Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket has been on various missions recently but before it returns to Earth, it ejects leftover fuel
People around Ireland were left baffled on Wednesday evening after a strange bright light was spotted moving across the sky, prompting some to label it a UFO.
People took to social media in the hope of identifying the strange sight. One pilot took a photograph from his cockpit and said:
"Spotted from the cockpit on approach to Cork on a training flight. Almost triangular in shape with the bottom of the triangle quite bright, almost like lights. Slightly varying speed. Not a believer in UFOs but quite spooked by this!"
Another person said: "This just happened now in Carlow, came out the garage to this in the sky, absolutely beautiful, never seen anything like this before, eventually it went into a small light/star and went off into the distance."
A third added: "Really unusual object in the sky tonight above Partry, Co. Mayo. Moving slowly across the sky, it looked like a bright dot with another bright line just above it."
However, as one expert said, "it's not aliens," and the object was actually one of Elon Musk’s rockets which had taken off earlier on Wednesday.
Musk's Falcon 9 rocket has been on various missions recently but before it returns to Earth, it ejects leftover fuel, which freezes instantly due to the altitude. Light reflects off the frozen fuel to make it visible from Earth.
Alan O'Reilly from Carlow Weather said: "The light in the sky tonight most likely to be the Falcon 9 dumping fuel in orbit based on latest information. Not aliens this time."