The “plume” over Buenos Aires — a Chinese rocket identified
At about 11:30 p.m. on May 8, 2024, a man in Castelar, west of Buenos Aires, filmed a glowing, feather-shaped plume climbing across the sky for some forty minutes until it was almost overhead, and sent the video to the Argentine Air Force’s aerospace identification centre (CIAE). The same sight was reported that night from several Argentine provinces and from Paysandú in Uruguay, Valparaíso in Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay. The CIAE recognised the inverted-V pattern left by a rocket’s upper stage and found a Long March 3B/E that had lifted off from Xichang at 01:43 UTC on May 9 (22:43 in Argentina) with the Smart SkyNet 1-01 satellite. Rebuilding the ascent from its trajectory, it found the rocket over the South Pacific about 3,600 km up, heading north-east into the sector of sky the camera was pointing at, 47 minutes after launch. In its 2024 report the centre classed the case as definitely explained, like all 36 cases it analysed that year.
Explanation
Argentina’s Air Force identification centre (CIAE) matched the video, by the rocket’s ascent trajectory, to the exhaust plume of the Long March 3B/E launched 47 minutes earlier from Xichang, China, with the Smart SkyNet 1-01 satellite (NORAD catalogue number 59707); it classed the case “definitely explained”.
What was seen
Shape: A glowing plume in an inverted V, rising across the sky
Witnesses: A witness in Castelar who filmed it for 40 minutes; many observers across five countries
Duration: About 40 minutes
Sources
- Fuerza Aérea Argentina, CIAE — annual report 2024 (case 14, Castelar)
- El Entre Ríos — remains of a Chinese rocket seen from the Uruguay river coast
- Meganoticias — the strange object seen in the night sky over Valparaíso
Browse
- Argentina
- 2020s
- Identified
- Tracked object events
- Official government documents
- Many independent witnesses
- Video footage
- Lights and fireballs
- Triangles and V shapes