Some UFO sightings could be explained by round lightning and other windy phenomena, claims Australian astrophysicist Stephen Hughes.
The scientist has done a minute investigate of an out of the ordinary eventuality in 2006 when considerable meteors were celebrated over Brisbane.
Their look occurred at the same time as a smart immature intent was seen to hurl over within reach mountains.
Dr Hughes has put deliver a theory joining the intent - reputed to be round lighting - to the fireballs.
His thought is that a of the fireballs might have momentarily triggered an electrical connection between the top sky and the ground, providing appetite is to round lightning to show up on top of the hills.
He has created up his reason in a biography of the Royal Society .
Dr Hughes says the extraordinary episode, that occurred during a night of excellent weather, is only the arrange of going on that might lead a few to regard they had witnessed UFO activity.
"If you put together irregular windy phenomena, may be of an electrical nature, with human psychology and the request to see something - that could notify a lot of these UFO sightings," he told BBC News.
The scientist, who is a comparison techer at the Queensland University of Technology, instituted the investigate after being called in by the local TV hire to look over and notify photos of the fireballs prisoner by members of the open on camera phones.
Fireballs are unusually splendid meteors and are constructed by fragments of space stone incomparable than the sand-grain-sized particles accountable for sharpened stars; but similar to sharpened stars they cranky the sky at great speed.
It seems at least 3 particular fireballs were seen on the night of 16 May 2006.
A successive consult organized by the university brought deliver many more eyewitnesses, inclusive a rancher who removed saying a radiant immature round rolling down a slant of the Great Divide, a alpine shallow about 120km west of Brisbane.
This intent described as being about 30cm in hole appeared to burst over a few rocks and follow the trail of a steel blockade for "some minutes". The rancher mentioned he saw the immature intent advance in to perspective only after a fireball had transfered overhead.
He thought at initial he was witnessing a craft collision and called the police, but a looking the subsequent to day found no wreckage.
Ball lightning seems an without doubt explanation, says Dr Hughes. These bright, hovering spheres of light are not entirely understood. They are well known to be related with thunderstorms, but not always, and there was of course no electrical charge wake up in the neighborhood of the Great Divide.
Dr Hughes does not offer a new reason is to causes of round lightning, merely how sufficient appetite might have been put in to the belligerent to trigger it.
He proposes that the innate upsurge of stream that exists between the upper-most reaches of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, and the belligerent was increased by the lane of the meteor that streamed charged particles and other conductive materials in its wake.
"Could it be that the meteor descending by the atmosphere, having transfered by the ionosphere, obviously created a transitory conductive connection between the ionosphere and the ground, even if it was only for a few seconds? Was that sufficient to put charge in to the ground, and then with the secretion form a few type of plasma round above?
"Think of the ionosphere and the belligerent as the terminals on the battery and you put a handle between those two terminals and stream flows, and literally you obtain a spark."
Other scientists have referred to that charges dissipating by the belligerent can emanate balls of glowing ionised gas on top of it.
Dr John Abrahamson from the University of Canterbury, NZ, championed the thought 10 years ago that round lightning consisted of vaporised vegetable grains kicked out of the dirt by a established lightning strike, an thought after that tested with a few success by Brazilian researchers.
He described Dr Hughes' work as "relatively feasible" and something that done "interesting connections".
"There's a long way to go before everybody will be cheerful and contented that you have a full solution," he told BBC News.
Dr Hughes mentioned his announcement in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences was expected to beginning a debate.
"It's not a powerful theory; it's more a suggestion that might be value exploring," he said.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
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