Press Trust of India Posted online: Monday, December 13, 2004 at 1225 hours IST
Beijing, December 13: An Unidentified Flying Object, or UFO, passed across the large north-western Chinese city of Lanzhou and apparently exploded in the suburbs, state media said on Monday.
The unusual sighting of two bright trails of light, reported by several witnesses, took place Saturday shortly before midnight, the China Times reported.
Police, working on the theory that it was a meteorite, went to investigate the matter, but as of today they had found no evidence of what caused the nightly phenomenon, an officer told AFP by telephone.
A taxi driver told the paper he was in his car when everything suddenly became "as bright as day."
When he pulled over, he saw a fireball with a tail of about three meters darting across the sky, he said.
China has been hit by several waves of UFO sighting in recent years, and the country has a research association devoted to the study of possible extraterrestrial visits.
