A MYSTERIOUS ball of light seen across eastern Australia early yesterday may be linked to the launch of a private spacecraft in the US, experts say.
The Falcon 9 rocket was successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida soon before people in Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria started reporting a UFO.
The UFO's speed, estimated at 20,000km/h, and west-to-east direction were consistent with a spent rocket grazing the earth's upper atmosphere, said Dr Peter Firth from the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium.
"This is the first time they've launched this kind of rocket, so we don't really have any experience of what we should expect to see," Dr Firth said.
