CENThe Chilean government has been left baffled by an unidentified flying object (UFO) that appeared to fly across the sky before falling to Earth and causing six fires.
Residents of the Chilean port city of Dalcahue on the island of Chiloé reported seeing the UFO in the early evening last Wednesday (September 25).
Images of the object show a red ball glowing in the sky, and according to local media the strange light was also spotted in other cities, including Osorno, Palena, Valdivia and Llanquihue.
CENThe UFO is thought to have sparked six fires that local voluntary firefighters had put out, however neither the firefighters nor the government are sure of what the object actually was.
Alejandro Verges, Director of Chile’s National Office of Emergencies of the Interior Ministry (ONEMI), said the fires were ‘attributable to an object that, so far, has not been identified’.
It’s not clear how big the fires were, but Verges said the firefighters received testimonies from local residents after successfully putting out the flames.
CENDalcahue Mayor Juan Hijerra said the firefighters, who have ‘a lot of experience’, explained that the smell of the fires was not smoke from material but rather ‘from stone, like sulphur’.
The smell apparently disappeared overnight but Verges said the object could have been a ‘possible meteor’ or the ‘remains of space waste’ that fell to Earth and ignited the fires.
Hijerra said the situation was ‘very strange’, though he could not confirm whether or not the object was a meteorite.
CENSpeaking of the fires, he commented:
There cannot be six sources of fire in a radius of 200 metres and all of them isolated. It’s like if small balls of fire have fallen. Some burnt the roots and others burned a little more.
After seeing the story on Twitter, astronomer Jonathan McDowell, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, followed up on the meteorite theory with some research into space debris.
CENThe day after the UFO was spotted, he wrote:
No obvious space debris candidates that I can see. But sometimes takes a few days for relevant data to come in.
No obvious space debris candidates that I can see. But sometimes takes a few days for relevant data to come in
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) September 26, 2019
The astronomer did not appear to shed any more light on the subject at the time of writing, so whatever it was that started the fires remains a mystery.
Hopefully officials will come up with an explanation soon… We all know the truth is out there.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.