UFO sighting over California: Real, meteor crash, or hoax?

It’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, so it must be…a UFO?

A YouTube video titled “UFO Crashing Releases Orb Over Southern California. Anyone Else See It?” has the Internet buzzing this week.

While at first it appears to be just another meteor crash misidentified as a UFO, the glowing orb-like object that shoots off in another direction at 0:17 adds a twist to the video that has people wondering: Could this be an actual UFO sighting?

According to videographer Ken Roberts:

“I was driving home after work when this UFO or whatever you call it caught my eye. I pulled over in front of somebody’s house to film it. I would have got a better shot but I didn’t want to jump these people’s fence. Anyway I don’t know what the hell to make of it. Couldn’t have been a plane cause there was no noise. And I never heard a crash after, either. The orb thing flew straight up into the sky and disappeared. Sorry I didn’t film that. I didn’t know what to focus my attention on.“

Sploid presents — and mostly debunks — the top theories as to what the mysterious light in the sky might be: A meteor, a satellite or spacecraft on re-entry, an experimental anti-intercontinental ballistic missile defense system or some other weapons test, or alien spaceship crashing with an alien escaping in a pod, or “a very good CGI prank.”

IFL Science’s Lisa Winter believes it’s all a prank.

“To answer the question in Mr. Roberts’ video title, the answer is: no. It doesn’t appear that anyone else saw it. There aren’t any pending reports of fireball sightings with the American Meteor Society, and no other eyewitnesses. With 22 million people living in SoCal, it seems odd that not a single one of them also noticed such a spectacle.”

UFO journalist Jason McClellan of Open Minds is also skeptical of the video’s authenticity:

“It’s unclear if something unusual was truly captured on video, or if this video is a simple for-profit creation,” he writes.

“Shortly after the video was posted to YouTube, another YouTube user posted a comment in response to the video, expressing interest in the video and proposing an offer for use of the footage. The description of the video has now been updated to inform viewers that this YouTube user, who aggregates videos on a YouTube channel related to UFOs, ghosts, and other paranormal topics, has been given ‘exclusive rights to use the video.’”

Reddit user flaxom picks apart the video’s contents:

“I think this is faked. The explosion sound is synchronized with the separation of the object, which doesn’t seem possible for the implied distance. The masking on the main object gets sloppy near the end of the video, for example as it emerges from around the pole and passes behind/over the last wire. Also just before the last movement of the camera away from the small object, you can see the mask on the main object slip a bit ahead of time,” he writes.

“No date, time or location info provided in the description. ‘Anyone else see this?’ What, your viral video?”

"The couple minutes of blackness is another attempt at showing authenticity, but come on, this isn’t a VHS tape. It’s an attempt to make it look amateurish.”

What do you think? Real UFO sighting, meteor crash, or clever hoax?