Ever since watching X-Files in the 90s we’ve been watching the skies.
But something spotted above Canberra has inevitably sent the internet wild.
A huge glowing orb was filmed above the hills of the Australian city during an electrical storm.
The spherical phenomenon lit up the sky for a brief second before disappearing again – leaving an outline in the sky. You can also see red and green light in the background which is believed to be an aurora.
Obviously everyone’s first thought was that the alien invasion of movie classics like Independence Day was finally upon us.
Some on social media speculated that it was a UFO exiting a portal from another dimension.
The most likely explanation for what happened was that it was an incredibly rare occurrence of ball lightning.
Brad Tucker, who is an Australian National University astronomer, told the ABC that he doesn’t believe it was aliens.
He also believes the aurora was created inside the earth’s atmosphere by the thunderstorm itself.
“The same activity that causes an aurora, can actually happen inside our atmosphere if you have a storm with a lot of electrical charge that is rubbing against the gases in our atmosphere, causing it to grow that green or red colour,” he said.
“Sometimes, if you get a really interesting occurrence, you create something called ‘ball lightning’.
“Normally lightning strikes up and down hitting the ground, but ball lightning is a weird thing where it appears as a ball explosion, sometimes it can even move around in the sky.”
Whatever it was, it was pretty weird.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIeZkE2DkjM
Clip via Johnson Thompson
