Beijing

China Reports Sudden Surge In UFO Sightings
Agence France Presse, Dec 10, 1999

China is undergoing a sudden surge in unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings, always with the same description, the normally staid official press said Monday. The Beijing Youth Daily published an article on the sightings Monday with a photo of two airborne oblong luminous objects taken the night before by China's central broadcaster. The newspaper said the photo, which resembles a pair of missiles, was taken above the district of Changping, north of Beijing. In another article, illustrated with a similar photo taken above the capital, the newspaper carried witnesses accounts of UFO sightings on November 14 and December 11, both late in the afternoon. Shanghai's press weighed in last week, reporting - with a photo - on two local UFO sightings on the same date at the beginning of the month, at roughly the same place and time. "It was oblong, yellow, with a shiny pointed top and a white tail,' one of the witnesses, identified only as "Mrs Yang," told the Liberation Daily.

An aviation expert who saw video footage of one of the sightings was quoted as saying the object was neither an airplane nor a meterological phenomenon, but an "artificial flying object." The Beijing Youth Daily theorized the sightings could have been illusions created by fumes from the engines of jets taking off at dusk.