Mysterious Lights Spotted Crossing Night Sky Over SoCal

LOS ANGELES — Mysterious lights were seen overnight streaking through the skies of Southern California, but it remains a mystery what caused them.

People from across the region, including Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Fountain Valley, Temecula and Riverside, took to social media to share footage of the streaming lights and speculate about what they could be.

The lights were visible over most of the region around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“I live in downtown and LA and that meteor shower was like literally above my head!!!!” X user chibu.eth posted on the platform shortly after 2 a.m. “Could have sworn those meteors touching earth in la. NUTS!!! It was too close to see dawg! Thought it was gonna hit the top of the us bank.”

Some speculation quickly arose that the lights might have been connected to a SpaceX rocket launch that occurred Monday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base on the Central Coast. But that launch happened around 7:30 p.m., long before the mystery lights appeared.

A Chinese spacecraft was expected to enter Earth’s atmosphere near LA at roughly the time the lights were seen, ABC 7 reported, citing The Aerospace Corporation.

City News Service contributed to this story.