A MELBOURNE family claimed to have seen something unexplainable hovering over their house over the weekend and even managed to snap a picture of the mystery object.

Paul Steinberg told news.com.au that he was in the driveway of his North Caulfield home with his daughter at about 8pm on Saturday night when they both spotted the UFO.

“It was flying just under the clouds. It looked like three red lights in a triangular formation all moving silently together in a westerly direction,” Mr Steinberg said.

“It was just silently moving through the sky and we couldn’t figure out what it was and it took us a few moments to realise it was moving quite fast.”

He called his wife and two other children outside and said they all witnessed the object travelling at what he estimated to be about 500km/h.

The 45-year-old, along with his wife and three of his kids aged between 11 and 18, all watched as the bright red lights zoomed silently overhead.

“We wanted to discount all the regular explanations we knew of like satellites, planes, drones and even Venus, which has been quite bright lately,” Mr Steinberg said.

“We are armature plane spotters and astronomers and we see things like satellites quite often but this just didn’t tick any of those boxes.”

He said even though the UFO was about 1.5km above them the lights were still easily distinguishable, which led him to believe that, whatever it was, it was very large.

“If it was a drone it was definitely very high up and really big,” Mr Steinberg said.

“All I saw were the lights but they were so prominent. To be able to distinguish the lights so clearly it would have to have been big.”

He said the object covered the distance from the family’s home to Albert Park, about 8.5km away, in under two minutes.

“It was very steady and silent for the most part but when it got into the distance it started to move around erratically, up and down and left and right — all over the place,” Mr Steinberg said.

“During the time we could it, the lights sometimes disappeared before reappearing in a different spot.”

He said it danced in the sky for about 10 minutes before it completely disappeared.

Mr Steinberg claimed the way it was moving, how fast it was travelling and the fact that it was silent made it nothing like he and his family had ever seen before.

However, Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA) CEO Michael Linke told news.com.au there was probably an earthly explanation for the odd sight.

“It was more than likely an aircraft,” he said. “Depending on the prevailing winds, you would not be able to hear the engine.”