On Tuesday, Lee-Anne Peters rose just before sunrise in Hobart, Tasmania. She was making cupcakes for her daughter's birthday when she "noticed this strange thing in the sky." She thought it was a plane at first, but her daughter speculated that it looked more like a meteor thanks to its fiery tail. "It was definitely quite an exciting start to the day," she said.
The video Peters posted to Facebook provoked a frenzy online, with hundreds of commenters debating whether the object was a UFO or even a chemtrail.
"Probably space junk, an old satellite or something," one person suggested.
Another poured cold water on all other theories: "I was at the Hobart Cenotaph (War Memorial) this morning at 06:30 watching the Queen Mary 2 dock and I too saw this, and verified from Radar it was an A380 Dubai to Auckland," he wrote.
According to a blog post by the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences in Sydney, such trails are caused when hot water vapour from aeroplane engines comes into contact with the cold atmosphere, where it condenses and freezes in small drops.
"If the trails are seen around the time of sunrise or sunset they can take on a wonderful golden colour and if seen off in the distance making them look low near the horizon they can look just like the common misconception of a comet."
Peters said she was surprised by the reaction on social media. "It was quite amusing to watch what people thought," she said. "Even when I realised it was a plane, people still argued with me and were convinced it was a meteorite."
"I'll get up early to see anything in the sky," she said. "You never know what you can see."
