[imagesource: Twitter / New York Times]

Usually, I would consider anyone pointing to the sky and mentioning aliens as being a tad detached from reality.

In the case of the Seattle residents who did so last night, it’s actually pretty understandable.

Yes, I know the Pentagon will soon release a report detailing UFO sightings that former intelligence director John Ratcliffe said will be difficult to explain, but there’s a difference between UFOs and aliens.

Back to what happened in Seattle, and residents shared numerous videos on social media showing brilliant, blazing streaks overhead.

Some couldn’t help but wonder if they were witnessing their own UFO sighting, or watching aliens in action.

Just saw this over the sky in the Seattle area, anyone else? Looked to pretty and creepy at the same time. They started fading and then disappeared completely. #stars #sky #meteor #seattle #aliens pic.twitter.com/QmBWcAvBB7

— Damian Ian Averell (@House_Averell) March 26, 2021

Hey @NASA what the heck just happened over the Seattle night sky? pic.twitter.com/QZqSJrf937

— Eto (@EbertonPaul) March 26, 2021

Meteor, asteroid ☄️ UFO 🛸 in Seattle pic.twitter.com/lGmzzTwIZa

— RHurv (@RHurv) March 26, 2021

This guy gets it, but he’s having a little fun:

Uhhh so this just happened in Seattle…. taken from my balcony pic.twitter.com/HU1zSxiIbD

— Lucas (@lucassmanning) March 26, 2021

As the lights worked their way across the city, they dropped in height:

There was a reasonable explanation for the sightings, as explained by GeekWire:

Jonathan McDowell, an expert satellite-tracker at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, quickly figured out that the meteoric display was actually the breakup of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage, left over from a launch that took place more than three weeks ago.

“The Falcon 9 second stage from the Mar 4 Starlink launch failed to make a deorbit burn and is now re-entering after 22 days in orbit,” McDowell tweeted.

According to McDowell, the rocket weighed around three tons and measured seven metres by 3,6 metres across.

The National Weather Service in Seattle also weighed in, saying “there are NO expected impacts on the ground in our region at this time”.

Perhaps a bummer for alien spotters, but a pretty incredible sight nonetheless.

[source:geekwire]