Flying object captured on Geelong CCTV camera before flash and power outage, sparking UFO chatter

A meteor has been ruled out as the unidentified flying object that preceded a bright flash and blackout in Geelong on Tuesday night, as the mystery deepens.

Mystery surrounds a video of a bright object flying across the sky seconds before a flash of light and a brief power outage in Geelong, sparking tongue-in-cheek chatter of a UFO.

And suggestions the bright flying object was a meteor have been rejected by experts.

The footage, captured on a street-facing CCTV system from a Bell Park home, shows a bright light briefly flying through the sky at 7.51pm on Tuesday night.

The object appears. Video: Supplied

In the next frame the object appears to split. Video: Supplied

The video then skips ahead 30 seconds to show a large white flash from where the flying object was, causing street lights to cut out and reports of a brief power outage in suburbs from Corio to Highton.

The person who passed the footage on to the Geelong Advertiser, who asked to remain anonymous, said they first thought the brief blackout was caused by a car hitting a pole, before checking the CCTV footage and noticing “something flying” beforehand.

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Social media theories to explain the flying object and power outage have spanned from meteors to transformer explosions and likely joke suggestions of UFO and alien conspiracies.

“Blue flash, usually transformer go bang,” one commenter posted, while another suggested “alien crashed”.

The flash. Video: Supplied

Still from CCTV of flying object, flash and power outage. Video from a Bell Park home. Video: Supplied

The director of the comet and meteor section of the Astronomical Society of Victoria Con Stoitsis on Wednesday said the bright object moved too slowly to be a meteor, and noted no reports had been made of meteor sightings on Tuesday evening.

“It’s definitely not a meteor,” Mr Stoitsis said. “It’s an unidentified flying object, technically, but I wouldn’t be saying it’s a UFO.”

Mr Stoitsis suggested the object may have been a passenger plane.

A Powercor spokesperson confirmed a fault occurred just before 8pm on Tuesday, with power restored to about 1300 customers in the northern suburbs within 10 seconds.

“The cause of the fault is being investigated,” a Powercor spokesperson said.

The video of the so-far unidentified object came just a day after skygazers in NSW and QLD saw a white disc-shaped object flying through the sky with a strange-shaped tail.

Astrophysicist Brad Tucker yesterday told News Corp the sighting was actually the plume of a Chinese rocket launched from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Centre – rumoured to be a new generation of navigation satellite which broadcasts in 4K and 8K.

“The plume is like exhaust, gas coming out during launch of the rocket,” Dr Tucker said. “Sometimes if it happens in the evening you can see the stranger shape and sight.”

Originally published as Flying object captured on Geelong CCTV camera before flash and power outage, sparking UFO chatter