Atlanta has officially been looking UP. Tuesday morning (October 13), phones came out all over the city as a glowing, jellyfish-shaped object drifted across the skyline. The videos have been pouring in ever since. From Henry County to Gwinnett and all across metro Atlanta, folks are asking the same question: what IS that?
FreddyO grabbed his phone too — and yes, he caught it himself. Check out his footage:
So what’s the answer? That Tuesday morning light show was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — the CRS-35 cargo mission, which launched at 6:33 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. On board: a Dragon spacecraft packed with more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and science experiments headed for the International Space Station. Not aliens — just an early-morning delivery run.
But why did it look like a straight-up UFO? Because the launch happened before sunrise. Down on the ground it was still dark, but the rocket’s exhaust plume climbed high enough to catch the sunlight. The water vapor in that plume freezes into ice crystals at altitude, and the expanding exhaust blooms into a wide glowing shape with wispy trailing strands — the famous “space jellyfish.” It’s so bright it can be seen from up to 800 miles away. Tuesday’s show was spotted across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. And get this — FOX 5 Atlanta had actually told North Georgia to look up for it in advance.
And here’s the thing — Atlanta keeps having these moments. Florida rocket launches arc up the East Coast, and every dawn or dusk launch has a chance of lighting up the sky over Georgia. Local TV even covered a Starlink “jellyfish” glowing over Jackson County earlier this year. Then there are the usual suspects behind Atlanta’s “UFO” videos: Starlink satellite “trains” — those lines of evenly spaced lights gliding across the sky right after a launch — bright planets like Venus sitting low on the horizon, drones, and the constant parade of planes stacked up around Hartsfield-Jackson, the busiest airport in the world.
Of course, not every video gets a neat little explanation — and honestly, that mystery is exactly why Atlanta keeps its cameras pointed at the sky. We covered this morning’s sighting in detail right here: Atlanta UFO Sighting: The Strange Light Over the Skyline This Morning Has an Explanation. And if YOU caught something strange over the city, send your video to FreddyO. Keep looking up, Atlanta.
Leave a Reply