Australia: UFO like 'a string of coloured pearls' pictured on dashcam hurtling across skies

Astrophotographers have captured a bizarre, unexplained object whizzing across the night sky in Berrimah, south of Darwin, Australia. Paul and Sylvia Mayo have 30 years of experience photographing star clusters and galaxies but have no explanation for the footage they captured.

"We're switched on people, we have long careers in IT," Paul told NT News. "But this video, I cannot explain it. I'm baffled, and I'm not usually baffled by anything. In my 30 years of taking photos of galaxies and star clusters, you might see the odd jet but this is, to me, probably moving a lot faster."

He captured the strange footage on the dash camera by a petrol station near Berrimah. When Paul reviewed the files later, he noticed a strange light going at incredible speeds across the horizon. He took stills from the video and increased the contrast and light balance. "It looked like a string of coloured pearls shooting through the sky," Paul said.

Theories to explain the phenomena included that it could be a windscreen reflection. However, this was rejected on the grounds that the unidentified object was moving too fast. A suggestion that it might be a shooting star was also rejected as Paul said it would curve through the sky. "That thing in the video is going along the treetops in a straight line," he said.

Darwin has been the location for other UFO phenomena. In October 2015, a bright orange streak of light was spotted by a father and his children. Quentin Theron filmed the video of the streak of brilliant light slowly moving through the sky from his garden.

The footage was examined by experts who could not say what the object was. "It is unidentified, flying and an object, but I don't think it is of alien origin," astronomer Geoff Carr told NT News. "Other than that I have no idea - it's certainly an interesting piece of footage."