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Authorities have opened an investigation into multiple reports of UFOs flying at twice the speed of sound off the coast of Ireland.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) is looking into reports made by commercial pilots claiming they saw "bright lights" and a superfast unidentified aircraft.

A series of sightings emerged on social media claiming to have seen mystery objects in the sky "moving so fast" they couldn't have been civil jets.

But mystery still surrounds the sightings as pilots queered whether they could be space debris falling toward the earth, as the objects darted in unusual flight patterns.

Trevor Buckley posted on Twitter that there were strange reports emerging over the radio.

"Very interesting report on Shannon high level," he said. "Multiple aircraft with reported sightings of a UFO over County Kerry."

An IAA spokesman told the Standard: "Following reports from a small number of aircraft on Friday, November 9 of unusual air activity the IAA has filed a report.

"This report will be investigated under the normal confidential occurrence investigation process.

A British Airways pilot contacted Shannon Air Traffic Control early on Friday November 9, the BBC reported, asking if there were any military exercises in the area because there was something "moving so fast".

The air traffic controller said there were no such exercises.

The pilot, flying from the Canadian city of Montreal to Heathrow, said there was a "very bright light" and the object had come up along the left side of the aircraft before it "rapidly veered to the north".

A second pilot, flying a Virgin plane, joined in the comments and suggested it might be a meteor, and there were "multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory" and that they were very bright, he said.

The pilot said he saw "two bright lights" over to the right which climbed away at speed.

One pilot said the speed was "astronomical, it was like Mach 2".

Mach 2 means twice the speed of sound, and is not uncommon for fighter jets. The fastest aeroplane in history was the North American X-15, which could reach Mach 6.7, but it was retired in the 1960s.

NASA worked on an experimental unmanned X-43 hypersonic jet, which set air speed records of close to Mach 10. Three were built and all were destroyed in testing.

Users on Twitter joked that this was the first sign of infrastructure appearing on the Irish Border due to Brexit.

Others claimed even ET was worried about the impact of the EU Referendum on the Irish border situation.

Robert Massey of the British Astronomical Society told the Standard: "A fast moving object that disappears quickly is highly likely to be a meteor.

"Bright meteors, sometimes called bolides, are seen a number of times each year and can be a dramatic sight - they do lead to reports of UFOs."