The appearance of hovering, flashing lights in the Australian sky last night has residents Down Under wondering what could have been the source.
Readers of the local newspaper, the Northern Territory News, phoned the publication to report green, blue and red lights flashing in the sky above Darwin, around 8:30 p.m.
Laboratory technician Julie Lynn, a self-described skeptic of unidentified flying objects, saw the lights with her husband from their balcony.
"It was fascinating to watch," she told the paper. "I was quite looking forward to curling up on the couch and watching a movie but it had our attention until we went to bed after midnight.
"It hovered in the one place for at least two hours but had moved significantly when we checked on it again before we went to bed. I can't believe there are UFOs or little green men out there – there must be an obvious explanation. And we weren't drinking so it wasn't something we imagined."
The object was said to be "shaped like three connected ball-shaped spheres that flashed blue, green and red from as many as six different light sources," according to the News. "It first appeared in a southeasterly direction and was moving northeast."
Kelly Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Australian Department of Defence, said the object was not a secret military aircraft, nor related to the air force.
Local airport officials also denied the UFO could have been in a plane waiting for clearance to land in Darwin.
In early April of this year, Australians reported seeing a huge fireball streaking across the sky, which some have speculated to be a meteor.
"Suddenly there was this flash, it's the only way I can describe it – it was so bright it was a white flash and it lit everything up. It was like somebody had turned on 50,000 spotlights," said witness Elsa Nelms.
Later that month in Iran, people were reported rushing out into the streets in eight towns to watch a bright "extraterrestrial light dipping in and out of the clouds."
The Islamic Republic News Agency also reported colorful objects seen beaming out green, red, blue and purple rays over the northern cities of Tabriz and Ardebil and in the Caspian Sea province of Golestan.
Image taken from infrared video of UFOs
And in May, the Mexican air force released video footage of 11 unidentified flying objects that were only visible via an infrared camera.
The objects reportedly flew around a military surveillance plane, Reuters reported.
Jamie Maussan, a journalists and UFO enthusiast, told reporters the objects seemed "intelligent" because at one point they changed direction and surrounded the plane that was chasing them.
"They were invisible to the eye but they were there, there is no doubt about it. They had mass, they had energy and they were moving about," Maussan said after showing a 15-minute video. He says Mexico's Defense Ministry gave him permission to show the footage
