Australia astronomer David Reneke is confounded by the footage of a UFO taken by Durras surfer Ben Roberts.
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“I don’t know what to make of it,” he said.
“At first I was sure it was Venus, because it was in the area in the sky at the time, but the way it moves in the last five to 10 seconds is strange stuff. Unless the film has been sped up it has me puzzled.”
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Mr Reneke said that Venus was responsible for most sightings across the world, and can be “quite brilliant”.
However, he also brought some aspects of the footage into question.
“In the end it pans left and there is a very bright sunrise, whereas before it was pitch black,” he said.
Mr Reneke was a UFO researcher for 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s and has pored over much footage of UFOs.
“UFOs usually don’t hang around for long, but this one does for nearly 10 minutes,” he said.
“What I would like to do is talk to the people who filmed it. It’s not bad footage but with the cameras and editing technology we have now it would not be hard to fake something like this.”
Meanwhile Mr Roberts, who filmed the footage near North Durras around dawn on June 21, has scoffed at suggestions the object is a “Chinese lantern” he made with firelighters and a plastic bag.
“That theory seems just as far out there as ETs,” he said.
“It would have had to have come over the sea from New Zealand. Someone commented with the thought a Chinaman on a container ship may have been up early lighting lanterns. I guess it’s still a UFO until we find the Chinaman! I’m not saying it’s not possible but the odds are extremely slim, and also, a lantern would be ascending more and not moving parallel or descending.”
Hao Xu claims to have seen a matching sight in the evening on the same date in Eastwood in Sydney.
“At around 8pm I was walking on the street and I saw an orange round bright object flying over my head quickly. I was very sure it was not a plane or anything similar, it was a UFO. When I saw the footage on the Bay Post website, I checked back my photos that night and amazingly, it was 21 June.”