A strange fireball shot across the sky in southern China—and for a few seconds, night turned into day.
The footage, which has gone viral on social media, shows a glowing orb streaking across the sky over the city of Maoming, leaving residents stunned and confused.
The event occurred on the night of May 28 in Haikou, a city in Hainan province. Locals reported hearing a loud boom in the sky—“like something had exploded”—before a blinding fireball appeared overhead, lighting up the landscape with an eerie brilliance before vanishing just as quickly.
Multiple videos from different angles capture the phenomenon in vivid detail. The object appeared massive, fueling early speculation: Was it a meteorite? A missile test? Or something more sinister?
🇨🇳 | Compilation footage shows the moment a meteor/fireball streaked across the sky in Maoming City, Guangdong Province, China
On the evening of May 28, 2025, there was a loud bang in the sky, and a super bright fire meteor suddenly descended over the urban area of Maoming!. pic.twitter.com/jaCsZtvocI
— RenderNature (@RenderNature) May 28, 2025
What Experts Are Saying About the Mysterious Fireball Over China
While the origin remains uncertain, scientists from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have confirmed one thing: it was, in fact, a fireball—a rare type of atmospheric phenomenon, but not a meteorite, not a missile, and, according to them, not anything paranormal.
Fireballs, they explained, are significantly brighter than typical meteors and can be visible across vast areas. As they burn through the Earth’s atmosphere, they reach temperatures of several thousand degrees Celsius, creating a flash intense enough to momentarily flood entire cities with light.
Still, Haikou officials have yet to issue a formal statement or offer further explanation about what happened that night.
So for now, what remains is a surreal video, a sonic boom, and a question hanging in the air: what exactly did we just see?
This article was originally written in Spanish by Lizbeth García in Cultura Colectiva News.
