Social media was abuzz on Monday night as many in the community took to Facebook and Instagram to post videos of a mystery ‘UFO’ in local skies.
And with the world’s media continuing to dissect theories related to the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon over the US in early February, the appearance of an unusual object in skies closer to home piqued the interest of many in Cayman.
One of the theories surrounding the mysterious appearance was that the light might belong to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on its Starlink mission heading into orbit.
Stargazers and curious onlookers from Puerto Rico to the US Virgin Islands also reported spotting a white-ish oval-shaped object in the sky.
While some joked that aliens were making a pit stop, others sought a more logical explanation, concluding that there was no invasion ahead, but a rocket on a mission with new communication satellites in tow.
The Cayman Islands Astronomical Society, in a Facebook post Tuesday, confirmed that the SpaceX rocket launch “was possibly visible” from the Cayman Islands [Monday evening] just before sunset.
“The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida in a south-easterly direction. The launch was at 6:13pm our time, so any visibility would have been very shortly after then in our northern skies,” it said.
The rocket, according to the SpaceX website, launched at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with 21 second-generation Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40).
This was the third launch and landing of this Falcon 9 first-stage booster, which previously launched CRS-26 and OneWeb Launch 16, Space X said.
Falcon 9 launches 21 second-generation Starlink satellites to orbit pic.twitter.com/dpBSeBVWtk
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 28, 2023
Pouring water on the SpaceX theory, however, the post from Cayman’s Astronomical Society added, that “widespread reports of a light in the western sky later that evening are NOT likely to have been the SpaceX rocket. The direction and time of day at around 8pm are far more consistent with a search lamp on an aircraft or something along those lines”.
The truth is out there….
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