By Tim Binnall
A curious cluster of lights spotted in the sky over Maui this weekend had some wondering if they were seeing visitors from another world, but experts say that the odd event was likely just a rocket booster burning up as it reentered the Earth's atmosphere. The strange incident reportedly unfolded on Saturday night and left bewildered witnesses scratching their heads at the odd sight. "We actually didn’t even know what to think. We didn’t know what it was, where it came from," one resident told a local TV station, "it just appeared. It was actually very eerie, eerie feeling."
As is often the case with such mass sightings, footage of the unexplained event (a collection of which can be seen above) soon found its way to social media, where many people speculated that the lights were connected to the UFO phenomenon. Alas, it would appear that is not the case as astronomy experts indicate that the luminous event was sparked by a Chinese rocket booster that had launched in 2008 and was finally returning to Earth as space junk.
Conceding that they cannot be absolutely certain about the explanation, since no pieces of debris have been found, they note that the aerospace companies that work with such rockets have precise calculations for when and where the objects will return to Earth. And, in this case, the event over Maui just so happened to perfectly match the time and location for the reentry of the Chinese rocket booster that left the Earth twelve years ago.