UFO over Chinese airport [VIDEO]

UFO Over Chinese Airport, Texas chupacabra sightings: Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence.

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Newscom/FILE
UFO over Chinese airport? An unidentified flying object was spotted in Hangzhou, China, forcing the closure of Xiaoshan Airport.

The summer heat really must be getting to people.

First there were two chupacabra sightings within 10 miles of each other in Texas. Then, China shuts down Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou after a UFO sighting (video below).

Apparently someone didn't listen to Stephen Hawking and contacted the aliens.

IN PICTURES: UFOs

Authorities in China are expected to discuss the object with a "bright comet-like tail," that was seen by a flight crew preparing for descent. Residents also said they saw the UFO emitting red and white rays of light.

"The thing suddenly ran westwards fast, like it was escaping from something," a local bus driver said of the strange glowing object.

Mirages? Hallucinations? Reflections of smog? The Oriental Yeti just got his pilot's license? We'd love to know.

Just like the chupacabra had a logical and realistic explanation – the mythical creature is likely a run-of-the-mill mammal with mange – so too is there an explanation for flying saucer sightings: mirages.

Specifically, a "superior mirage." A mirage is an optical phenomenon that occurs when light rays are bent to produce an image of a distant object. Mirages can be captured on camera, but the 'objects' they depict are nothing more than refracted light.

A superior mirage create appears above an object, higher in the sky. This mirage forms when cold air lies beneath warm air, known to meteorologists as temperature inversion. Light rays refract downward to the colder air, making the object appear to our eyes as above its actual position.

Christine Pulliam, a spokeswoman from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, says that everyone has seen a superior mirage.

"The same phenomenon occurs to the sun every day and makes it appear to be above the horizon when it's actually slightly below it," she told NPR in 2008.

At night, the moving lights from cars on a highway can be refracted, making red taillights and white headlights seem as though they're coming from the sky.

Pulliam's opinion on alien UFOs? She sums up Carl Sagan's famous dictum: "I would say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. And if somebody really thinks it is alien visitors or hyperdimensional travelers, they need to come up with a better explanation than eye witness reports."

Of course, journalistic balance requires us to hear from the other side, too. So here goes: According to latestufosightings.us, UFOs are a government cover-up. They believe the government is building a large "Death Star."

Or we could just go with the age-old "It's the Russians!" Speculations that the UFO could be a Russian satellite, a hidden US bomber, or a new Chinese missile flooded the Internet after 18 flights were affected at Xiaoshan Airport.

Question is, why isn't anyone blaming Canada?

We think we'll stick with mirages as the explanation for this one though.

Related:

IN PICTURES: UFOs

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