Grey nomads staring up at the stars on Monday night were shocked to see the sudden emergence of a strange, bright light.
The latest mysterious ‘object’ was seen by thousands of people across the Northern Territory and Queensland.
McKinlay shire councillor, Shauna Royes, was at the Julia Creek caravan park in remote north-west Queensland when she spotted the light .
“We were actually at the caravan park having a bush dinner for not-for-profit organisations, so there was about 160 people, and one of the tourists looked up and said, ‘look’,” Ms Royes told the ABC. “It was quite a bright, unusual light with a tail on it … it was travelling north-east and we watched it for probably two or three minutes before it faded out.”
Talk immediately turned to UFO’s and possible inter-Galactic spacecraft, but University of Southern Queensland astrophysics professor Jonti Horner told the ABC that this probably wasn’t a sign of alien life.
The sighting occurred on the day India launched its second moon mission so apparently it is a really good bet that the cause of the light.
“It’s not quite a sign of alien life — it’s a sign of India going to the moon,” said Professor Horner. “In some ways that’s even cooler, you are seeing something that is exciting and it’s worth remembering that we are now in an era that it’s not just the US and Russia, we have China on the moon and India going, it really is a global endeavour.”
Professor Horner said the light “was a combination of the rocket burning, but you’ve also got the gas being ejected from the rocket, the gas is spreading out in space and reflecting spotlight as well, so it’s like it creates a cloud in space that gradually disperses with the rocket at the end of it”.
We saw the strange light also. We were at Boulia Camel Races which had finished and we stayed on an extra night. We were sitting outside beside a lovely fire when we spotted the light and watched it heading north east.
We were at a gravel pit near Clermont Qld when we saw it
We were on a farm in NSW, somewhere between Wee Wah and Narrabri. The light seemed to be approaching us before it faded into the night as if it burnt out.