A flash of light in the western US in April thought by some to have been a sign of alien life visiting Earth was just a meteor, US media outlets reported, meaning while Earth was visited by an extraterrestrial, it was just a space rock as opposed to a living being.
But the sightings of aliens that came with the flash of light have yet to be explained.
The streak of light in question was spotted on April 30 when a Las Vegas police officer caught it on their body camera. A short while later, someone called 911 and said that a UFO had landed in his backyard, according to local CBS affiliate 8 News Now.
The man specifically said there was a large non-human entity lurking in his yard, telling the 911 dispatcher that "It has big eyes and it's looking at us."
Notably, police officers who went to the scene were met by others who said they saw the same thing, as noted in police footage shared online.
One of the witnesses later shared his own experience in a separate YouTube video.
According to the American Meteor Society, the flash of light was a fireball from a meteor entering the atmosphere and it had documented it in its fireball logs.
NASA, however, had no mention of the incident at all.
There is a reason for that, though. Speaking to Vice Media's Motherboard outlet, NASA planetary defense official Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) database only includes reports of objects that are one meter in size or more. Those objects are large enough to be considered asteroids rather than meteors.
Further, Lindley argued to Motherboard that the meteor wouldn't have landed in Las Vegas, with police also stating that no UFO was discovered.
Meteors: A frequent extraterrestrial visitor to Earth
Meteors land on Earth often enough, occasionally resulting in large fireballs that sometimes can even be seen during the day.
Back in April, one such meteor actually hit the Earth and exploded in Israel, with a bright fireball visible during the day.
Other meteors have impacted the Earth recently, such as several believed to have hit Maine, one hitting a home in New Jersey, and another one, the size of a Pembroke Welsh corgi, having hit Texas.
Have aliens come to Earth?
But if the flash of light was just a meteor that didn't land in someone's yard, then that raises the question: What did land?
The police said they took the 911 call seriously and found the witnesses' testimonies credible and said it likely wasn't a hoax. This is significant because, in the state of Nevada, hoax 911 calls are considered felonies, 8 News Now reported, adding that attempts to interview the witnesses failed when they didn't answer their phones or doors.
So did a UFO land? Were alien life forms now walking through Las Vegas? Police haven't found anything, but told Motherboard they hope to find them soon; after all, Las Vegas isn't too far from the infamous Area 51.