The usually staid state media in Shanghai carried reports yesterday that an unidentified flying object had been sighted in the city.
In a front-page story, with colour photographs of an object resembling a meteor, the Wenhui Daily said the UFO was spotted over western Shanghai on Thursday afternoon.
The paper said one of its reporters dashed to the 43rd floor of a building after receiving a call from a reader about the sighting. The reporter claimed he saw an illuminated object which remained stationary in the sky for about 10 minutes before it disappeared.
Two Shanghai television channels broadcast footage of an object darting through the sky with a flaming orange tail, saying nearly 100 people saw it.
A former researcher at the Shanghai Observatory, Professor Jiang Xiaoyuan, was among the witnesses but he could not offer any explanation.
The UFO hovered over Shanghai for 1.5 hours, reports said.