A viral video featuring an unidentified meteorite-like object breaking away from a mysterious glowing orb as it streaks across the skies of southern California has sparked tons of speculations on social media.
In the Jan. 5 footage, an unidentified object is clearly visible as it initially travels through the sky while leaving a long tail behind, which is characteristic of space debris or a meteorite burning up in the atmosphere, according to OpenMinds.
However just a few seconds later, a second peculiar object appears to get ejected from the main fireball and begins to travel in the opposite direction at a faster speed than the first object.
"I was driving home after work when this UFO or whatever you call it caught my eye," said Ken Roberts, who filmed the bizarre occurrence while driving home from work and posted the video on YouTube. "I pulled over in front of somebody's house to film it. I would have got a better shot but I didn't want to jump these people's fence."
"Anyway I don't know what the hell to make of it. Couldn't have been a plane because there was no noise. And I never heard a crash after either."
"The Orb thing flew straight up into the sky and disappeared," he added, but failed to specify where the footage had been filmed, other than the general area of California.
While UFO enthusiasts are speculating that the bright UFO could be some sort of escape pod from a crashing ship, several others believe it is more likely to have been a meteorite breaking apart in the atmosphere.
Over the past week, there have been several sightings of meteorite fireballs in the U.S., with many being reported from California. On Jan. 3, about 17 eyewitness reports of a fireball in the northern California sky were received by the American Meteor Society.
The annual Quadantrid Meteor Shower, which happens as the Earth crosses the remains of a comet or planetoid observed half century ago, also had its peak night on Monday. Although it is "logical to think this is may be one of these meteors, it seems way too slow to be a meteor, which enter the atmosphere at a much faster speed than the UFO recorded in California," according to Sploid.
Even though there is no official confirmation, the UFO could also have been a military satellite or a secret experimental spacecraft entering the atmosphere, based on its speed.
"I think it could be something re-entering and bits coming off it," said Ben Biggs, editor of All About Space magazine. "However, if it was a big spacecraft then we'd probably know about it."
Meanwhile, theories about the video being a CGI prank and digitally edited were also brought up, The Daily Mail reported.
"It could also simply be some clever Photoshop, especially considering there don't seem to be any other videos of the event which would surely have been seen by many people," Biggs said.
"Also, California is right next to Nevada, home of the top secret base inside Area 51. There's always a chance that this is some military project gone awry."
Mike Hankey, from the American Meteor Society, said: "This video looks fake. It was published on Jan 5 and we had no reports of fireballs in southern California on Jan. 5 or Jan. 4."
But one eyewitness, identified as Subramanian N, claimed to have seen it and described the fireball as having a green color. "I saw a secondary little fireball (very light) at the time of maximum brightness of the first fireball."
Another man from Eagen, Minn., reported seeing what he thought was a satellite in the sky which had appeared to break into two objects.
Meanwhile, Roberts remained unavailable to questions put to him by The Daily Mail.
So what are your theories? Could the footage be deemed as legit or a hoax?
