In the summer of 2010, the skies above Hangzhou’s Xiaoshan Airport became the center of attention when a huge UFO disrupted the regular rush of air traffic. On the evening of July 7, operations came to an abrupt halt when unidentified lights appeared, leading to a cascade of delayed and diverted flights.
The alarm was triggered by bright lights in the sky that moved erratically. Reports claim that air traffic controllers from the Hohhot Air Traffic Management Bureau spotted the object on their radar.
A flight crew preparing for descent first spotted the object around 8:40 PM and notified air traffic control. Aviation authorities responded within minutes by grounding outbound flights and diverting inbound flights to airports in Ningbo and Wuxi.
The incident was so exceptional that the airport even sounded its air defense siren and fighter jets patrolled it all night. At that time, thousands of people at the airport witnessed the scene, taking photos and videos of varying quality.
Eighteen flights were affected. Although normal operations resumed an hour later, the incident attracted the attention of the Chinese media and sparked a firestorm of speculation about the identity of the UFO.
After about an hour, the object and lights suddenly disappeared and passenger planes were allowed to land.
To further fuel speculation, Hangzhou residents released photos taken in the afternoon before the delays of a floating object bathed in golden light and with a comet-like tail.
Less than an hour before Xiaoshan Airport was closed, residents said they also saw a flying object emitting red and white light beams.
Ma Shijun was taking a night walk with his wife when he saw the object.
“I felt a beam of light above my head. Looking up, I saw a streak of bright, white light flying across the sky, so I grabbed the camera and took the photo. It was 8:26 PM. But whether the object was an airplane or the UFO from Xiaoshan Airport, I don’t have a clear answer,” Ma told Xinhua news agency.
Hangzhou meteorological authorities proposed a more mundane explanation, suggesting the midday images were likely reflections from an airplane. Zhu Jing, curator of the Beijing Planetarium, supported this theory regarding Ma’s photo, comparing the image to the familiar sight of an airplane’s flashbulbs.
The next day, reports arrived from Chongqing, where another unidentified flying object was sighted, adding to nationwide curiosity and debate.
After a few days, Chinese news reported that authorities learned what the UFO was after an investigation, but “there was no appropriate time to make the information public” because it had a “military connection,” state-owned China Daily concluded.
And that’s literally all. Yep, that’s where the news ends on this scale. No investigations, nothing.
This incident happened in 2010, when smartphones were not popular, but thousands of people witnessed UFOs, leaving so many videos and photos on the Chinese network at the time.
A day later, all these videos and photos were deleted by government authorities. Even the CCTV news reporting the event was deleted that day. There are only a few photos and videos left
Despite conflicting official statements and eyewitness accounts, the true nature of the lights remains an open question.
