A mysterious orb of light with a sprawling, glowing tail was spotted soaring across the Big Apple skies early Tuesday morning, igniting theories that aliens were preparing to touch down.
Conspiracists were right: the strange object was, in fact, a spaceship — but not the kind with little green men inside.
Something similar was seen in Pennsylvania shortly after the Polaris Dawn launched from the Kennedy Space Station in Florida at 5:23 a.m., carrying NASA scientists and a daredevil civilian who will be the first non-astronauts to perform a spacewalk.
The crew — including second-time space flier, billionaire Jared Isaacman — will spend the next five days in outer space, setting their sights far beyond the International Space Station.
The spaceship can be seen in videos across the East Coast making its way steadily across the sky, seemingly moving horizontally instead of toward the stars.
In New York, some early birds unaware of the SpaceX journey questioned whether it was something other-worldly.
“That’s aliens dawg!” one person wrote.
“There are enough extraterrestrials in NYC, if you ask me,” wrote another.
The Polaris Dawn is setting off on a record-breaking journey that, at an altitude of 870 miles, would surpass the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966. Only the 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured farther.
The ship will spend 10 hours at the height, filled with extreme radiation and riddled with debris before reducing orbit to about 435 miles.
The spacewalk — often considered one the riskiest stunts while in orbit — is scheduled for Thursday.
