A mysterious light was spotted in China last night, leaving residents baffled.

Witnesses shared pictures and videos of an unidentified object appearing to light up the night sky like a massive torch, seen above the regions of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia at about 6:45pm local time.

A UFO expert claimed that the footage looked like the trail of a rocket motor.

Witnesses shared pictures and videos of an object lighting up the night sky like a massive torch, seen above Beijing, Chongqing, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia at about 6:45pm

A leading UFO expert claimed that the footage looked like the trail of a rocket motor

The series of perplexing videos were posted yesterday on Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo as stunned net users discussed what it could be.

They described the two-minute phenomenon as bright white rays shaped either like a 'massive tail' or an 'artificial light' beaming from the clouds and slowly moving across the sky.

'Aliens are coming!' said one user on Weibo.

The perplexing videos were posted yesterday on Weibo as net users discussed what it could be

Net users described the two-minute phenomenon as bright white rays shaped either like a 'massive tail' or an 'artificial light' beaming from the clouds, sparking a UFO scare

'Is the UFO leaving China after celebrating its national holiday?' another asked, referring to last week's Golden Week holiday.

A military magazine editor and blogger by the name of Weaponmagazine-Xiaoning said the footage could be of Chinese military testing a top secret hypersonic aircraft, DF-ZF. The hypersonic glide vehicle was previously known by the Pentagon as WU-14.

However, officials in China have yet to confirm the latest round of testing.

Residents in Beijing were also startled by a similar sighting on April 27, when a strange beam of light was spotted in the night sky, said to be caused by a rocket launch from Taiyuan's satellite launch centre.

Leading UFO expert Nigel Watson said the footage looked like the trail of a rocket motor

A military magazine editor and blogger by the name of Weaponmagazine-Xiaoning said the footage could be of Chinese military testing a top secret hypersonic aircraft

Leading UFO expert Nigel Watson, author of UFOs of the First World War, told MailOnline that the footage looked like the trail of a rocket motor, similar to the phenomenon seen following a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch on Sunday night.

'In both cases they are night launches where the rocket exhaust gases look very spectacular and can easily make people think this is a UFO,' Mr Watson pointed out.

'Fortunately, these are examples of terrestrially produced out-of-this-world spectaculars, not the work of the notorious big-eyed greys of UFO legend,' he added.