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UFO? No. That bright light in Las Vegas was a meteor
If Your Time is short
- NASA told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that a recent bright light that some residents confused with a possible UFO sighting was a meteor and the photos showing the light are old.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless it's a rumor about a supposed UFO landing there. That’ll go viral.
"Unprecedented UFO landing shrouds Las Vegas, Nevada in mystery," read the headline of a June 16 blog post. It showed two photos and went on to claim that UFOs descended from the sky. One photo showed an orb arcing across what looks like sky; the other showed something glowing behind clouds.
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
First, those photos aren’t from a recently reported UFO landing in Nevada. The first image has been online for more than a year, while the other showed a 2004 photo taken by a retired Royal Air Force officer in Sri Lanka.
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So what of that "bright beam of light recently spotted plummeting through the darkness" that was captured May 1 on a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer’s body camera? It was a meteor, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
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NASA’s Planetary Defense Office told the newspaper the flash of light "certainly" was not a UFO.
We rate claims of an unprecedented UFO landing in Las Vegas False.
Our Sources
Blog post, June 16, 2023
Las Vegas Review-Journal, Did aliens land in Las Vegas? NASA says no, June 19, 2023
YouTube, Suspicious Activity LLV230500000097 #1, June 8, 2023
NBC News, British UFO files trace sightings (and hoaxes), March 3, 2011
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UFO? No. That bright light in Las Vegas was a meteor
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