One of the other UFO sightings involved a group of schoolchildren in the city of Deqing. I reported extensively on this sighting, beginning with this article, as any regular reader of this news site would know.

Not long ago I also wrote an article that outlines my findings suggesting that the Chinese government has no intention of disclosing the fact that extraterrestrial craft are visiting Earth anytime soon. So naturally when a Purple Mountain Astronomer slipped and mentioned to a journalist that an ‘Unidentified object’ was seen in space, the government went into damage control and debunking mode.

The astronomer Mr Ji Haisheng, promptly made it clear that he, being a sane person, would never suggest that any UFO or object observed could be an alien craft that might suggest that the entire universe consisting of billions of galaxies doesn’t exist solely for the benefit of human beings unlikely to ever make it past Mars.

A number of ill-researched articles appeared further debunking the event and getting it all wrong. One such article was written by Luke McKinney, a seeming 21st century version of a flat-earth proponent. He thinks that anyone who believes that other planets may harbour civilization, as does Earth, is a lunatic. Aliens, according to McKinney, should know their place and stick to science fiction books and movies and not make a bother of themselves by showing up in real life.

Mr McKinney made a number of serious errors. He suggested that the Deqing sighting by the students was simply rolled out to further add to the credibility of the Purple Mountain event. As mentioned above, anyone who regularly reads my articles would know how much I covered this sighting and how important I thought it was well prior to the Purple Mountain Observatory announcement: going as far to have written this article.

However when I did get wind of the fact  that The Purple Mountain Observatory had recorded an ‘unidentified object’ during the eclipse I must say that I got excited.

Then the debunking began. However not, by any means, smoothly.

The initial statement by The Purple Mountain Observatory claimed the objects in question were flare ups on the sun’s surface and this image, allegedly showing the unidentified objects, was rolled out as proof:

However when China Daily set out to refute the UFO claims it became this photo:

I had noted here that the spaceship was probably huge, glowing…and bluish (And I had not even seen the above photo). Was this picture swapping another slip-up or is someone at Purple Mountain trying to tell us something?
 
Even more suspiciously, the image shown in conjunction with the article bears little to no relation to the description of the alleged spots mentioned within the article itself. The above image clearly does not show a flare-up on the Sun's surface or any other 'small occurrence on the Sun itself': The object appears to be nowhere near the Sun and may well have been situated, at the time the image was taken, between Earth and the Moon!

Here is a still from the film taken by one of the students:

Ji Haisheng then set out to explain, in the China Daily article, that he never said that an ‘Unidentified Flying Object’ was recorded but rather an 'Unidentified Object' ……that happened to be in space. In all fairness, Ji Haisheng, who might not speak English, probably meant to say a UFO and not an Extraterrestrial spaceship.

Another point: Notice how much has been made of the claim that it was the corona of a solar eclipse that was filmed for forty minutes and not the unknown object? No-one, however, has come forward and told us for how long the object was actually filmed for.

A couple of debunkers have simply guessed, it seems, it was a few seconds. Maybe they are right. As if an alien spaceship filmed for a few seconds is less of an alien spaceship than one filmed for forty minutes.

Truth be told, no-one would expect an employee of a government observatory to claim an alien spaceship was seen anyway. Especially if one was.

In summation the China Daily article didn’t really differ from the original account other than informing us that it was an 'Unidentified Object and not an 'Unidentified Flying Object'....in space and that the object might not have been seen for the full 40 minutes......but might have. 

The history of UFOs turning up at eclipse time has been extensively documented. It appears they find the event as fascinating as we do. Those who propose that a deity arranged the universe often bring the eclipse as proof of ‘intelligent design': Noting the statistical improbability of this phenomenon being seen from any planet, let alone ours.

Others who believe extraterrestrials or even 'ultra-terrestrials' might have played a part in creating our environment might argue that at eclipse time they come here to watch the results of their handiwork.