The video looks like it could be the opening scene of "E.T."
A bright light slowly traverses the sky, trailing an incandescent tail. In the foreground, bugs buzz and flora gently shimmers in the breeze near a barn.
Only the video was shot the night of July 25 night in San Marcos by a security camera owned by Rebecca Woods.
"Our camera is facing south and the object flew from west to east," Woods told NBC 7 over the weekend. "I first thought it might be a Starlink launch because this is the exact trajectory I’ve seen in previous launches but there was nothing scheduled."
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We've seen a few of those Starlink launches ourselves, and this one looks very different.
Some also theorized the object could be part of one of the meteor showers visible recently during summer nights.
UPDATE, JULY 30: Eric Sandquist, who is a professor and the department chair of San Diego State's Astronomy Department, told NBC 7 that he believes the object was, in fact, space junk:
Local
"The object appears to be the same one in this news story from Mexico. It is believed to be a Japanese booster rocket from a launch in 2010. There is a link on the page to a prediction that the rocket would de-orbit at about the time observed."
Sandquist went on to say that the west-to-east track the fireball was on "supports the idea that it was an orbiting object that re-entered (as most launches go eastward to make use of Earth's rotation). The relatively slow speed also generally rules out a meteor (as a meteor would probably be encountering the atmosphere at a much higher speed)."
There were dozens of replies on X to a post from @HansRudolphNeat shortly before 9:30 last Thursday night, asking if anybody else saw it.
One poster offered a theory: "Satellite burning up on re-entry," wondered #spgreenwood, an idea possibly supported by @DrMarigold11, who said he saw the unidentified flying object break apart in New Mexico.
Spotters reported the object from all over, from Oceanside to Tijuana — and as far east as Texas, a list including:
- Chula Vista
- Coachella Valley
- Encinitas
- EscondidoMission Bay
- Gaslamp Quarter
- Mission Valley
- New Mexico
- Oceanside Harbor
- Ojinaga Chihuahua/Presidio, Texas
- Pacific Beach
- Mission Beach
- Mission Bay
- Tijuana
- Torrance
The watch commander for the San Diego Police Department told NBC 7 on Friday that nobody had called to report the mysterious orb, nor does it appear to be connected with last weekend's return of Comic-Con.
