A viral video of a bizarre light that was taken over Oklahoma City this week has citizens buzzing and resulted in a lengthy investigation by a local news station.
A short clip filmed Monday evening showed a large light that appeared to separate into two lights — the second one in the shape of a halo.
The video was taken by resident Steve Aragona around 7:30 p.m., according to KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City — and it had him and those around him in awe.
“Is that a UFO? That’s a UFO,” one person in the clip said.
“What is that?” a man asked. “Like some sort of, like, pulse energy or something.”
The video had more than 400,000 views after it was shared on the RyaninOklahoma TikTok account.
@ryaninoklahoma UFO sighting in Oklahoma on March 4th, 2024 at 7:30 pm. Do you believe in UFOs? #oklahoma #ufo ♬ original sound – RyaninOklahoma
No one present for the mystery light show knew quite what to make of it — nor did experts who spoke to NBC affiliate KFOR, whose article featured a longer version of the video.
Have you ever seen something strange in the night sky?
University of Oklahoma aerospace professor Ken Carson said the video appeared to show a rocket launch.
“It looked like a normal ascent of a rocket with a booster separating staging,” Carson told the outlet. “It’s a new blast, if you will, of oxidized propellant, coming off the separation of that first stage.”
Meanwhile, local astronomer Wayne Harris-Wyrick told KFOR he suspected the object seen over Oklahoma City was related to a military operation.
“I looked at all the launches of SpaceX and other publicly announced launches,” Harris-Wyrick said. “My best guess is Vandenberg Space Force Base launched some sort of secret military flight, or whatever is they do.”
KFOR reported it also reached out to representatives of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
The Space Force said the timing of the object seen in Oklahoma did not match any of its activities, while Nellis said it would look into the video.
Days later, people in the area were still wondering about what they saw, and many of them have taken to the KFOR Facebook page to share their experiences and opinions.
One commenter who said she saw the object wrote, “Shortly after we saw an explosion out the left side; then it just disappeared as if it evaporated. Please keep us informed. We are anxious to hear an explanation.”
Another reported seeing the same lights numerous times and said, “I’m happy other people are curious about it too, maybe we will get to learn what it actually is!”
The station noted that a SpaceX launch occurred in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on the evening the video was taken, but that was roughly 90 minutes earlier and Florida is east of Oklahoma. KFOR said the video was facing westward.
Not even Aragona knew what to make of what he saw when he spoke to a reporter.
“Everybody had their opinions about what it was,” he said.
