Last Friday, a strange phenomenon that appeared in the skies over much of northeastern China confused many of the people that witnessed it. And yet, any suggestion that it was a rocket launch was thoroughly dismissed with Chinese media denying that there was any rocket launch scheduled at that time.

It took a full day before the public was given an official answer that raised more questions than it answered. Here's the People's Daily Weibo post from last Saturday with the explanation:

Chinese Academy of Sciences: Last night's UFO was a noctilucent cloud: Last night's UFO was a noctilucent cloud! When an airplane or rocket flies overhead, water vapor from their emissions may condense to form a contrail. When the cover of night falls and covers the lower layer of the atmosphere, the higher portion of the sky may still be illuminated by the sun. As such, high-flying aircraft that pass through track cloud become illuminated by sunlight, thereby leading to the formation of the rare noctilucent cloud.

This answer didn't satisfy many of the netizens that left comments that were openly suspicious of the report.

One person that viewed the CAS explanation as suffering from a logic gap asked pointedly, "That begs the question: Just how was [this cloud] made?"

Instead of directly contradicting Chinese authorities, some netizens used sarcasm as their last viable way of making their point.

One person said, "We understand, we understand ... this is something we shouldn't know, and shouldn't persist in asking. Love the Party, love the country: these are things I can do." Another person wrote, "If you tell me it's a heavenly fairy, I'll believe you. That's because I'm patriotic, and I dearly love this land."

READ: UFO Causes Flight Diversion at Beijing Capital Airport

Another person referenced an infamous quote made by a government official in the wake of the 2011 Wenzhou high-speed rail crash. "Whether or not you believe it, I don't," read the comment.

As is the case with UFO sightings around the world, the alleged cover-up also brought up some conspiracy theories. In response to last week's aerial phenomenon, some netizens brought up the "War of 1999," a secret war that humanity lost to extraterrestrial invaders that resulted in an international cover-up that involved memory wiping.

Noctilucent clouds are a rare phenomenon that only began appearing over the last hundred years or so. Occurring in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the clouds often appear as wispy trails containing uncontoured outlines (shown above).

China's current space ambitions include developing a space plane, exploring the far side of the moon, and replacing its space station that recently fell to Earth.

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E-Mail: charlesliu1 (at) qq (dot) com

Twitter: @Sinopath

Images: Free Republic