What appeared to be a fleet of invading space alien ships above Sacramento and much of Northern California Friday night spurred plenty of Cloverfield chatter, but it was apparently just flying, discarded parts from the International Space Station.

Quite a shock for people in Sacramento who were drunk and/or high on St. Patrick’s Day at roughly 9:30 p.m. on Friday night. As seen below, revelers saw the central California skies alight with lights moving consistent with the appearance of what you’d figure it would look like if aliens were invading planet Earth.

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But KPIX confirms the streaks of light were space debris from the International Space Station. “The U.S. Space Force confirmed the re-entry path over California for the Inter-Orbit Communication System,” which had once been part of the International Space Station, KPIX reports. (Yes, that agency still has the Trump-era name “Space Force.”)

“What you saw was the breakup of a communications module that had been attached to the International Space Station,” Chabot Space and Science Center adjunct astronomer Gerald McKeegan told NBC Bay Area in the video above. “In 2020, after they were no longer using it, they detached it and just let it drift in orbit. And eventually that orbit decayed, and it reentered the atmosphere over central California.”

SFGate directs us to the above tweet, which shows us what the contraption looked like before it burned to bits on reentry, thereby creating Friday’s light show.

“The hope was that it would reenter on the next orbit, where it would be out over the Pacific Ocean. Most of the earth is covered with water,” McKeegan continued. “This one happened to come down a little earlier than expected.”

But even if it wasn’t an alien invasion, is there any risk this space junk could strike people, or strike areas that could the suffer enormous fires? Astronomers think not.

“Likely, most of it broke up and burned in the atmosphere as it first encountered the thin air at that altitude, and friction caused it to break up and burn apart. And you could clearly see that’s what was happening as they were coming down,” McKeegan said.

Likely????

Related: Weird Lights Over The Mission Fuel Nationwide UFO Rumors. Are They Coming For Our Hipsters? [SFist]

Image: ArthurM40330824 via Twitter

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We wanted to believe — in something bigger than ourselves, in life from galaxies far, far away, in Santa Claus. And when a bright light shone above our heads last night sometime after 7 p.m., Twitter floated lots of ideas, invoking the godhead of the alien emoji. The Huffington Post even fanned the flames of speculation in the sky, wondering if a Geminid meteor or a missile might have been the cause.

Instead, NBC learned that a mysterious light over California and parts of Nevada was nothing more than... Russian space debris.

So no, it wasn't exactly Star Wars. But you know, the Space Race and Cold War kind of was like Star Wars — that's actually what the media nicknamed Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative ca. 1983 — so this vestige of Russian space/military might could be considered as such. Just spitballing about the fireball here.

The "facts:" US Strategic Command said the light was emitted by a Russian SL-4 rocket body upon reentry to our atmosphere somewhere in the skies above Arizona just after 7 pm. The Joint Space Operation Center weren't surprised by the event. They're tracking 16,000 objects according to Strategic Command spokesman Lt. Col. Martin O'Donnell. Bring it up with the Russian Federal Space Agency, he said. So, uh, thanks, Putin?

Related: Video: SoCal's Mysterious Missile Launch In Skies Over San Francisco

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• Mayor Lee is pushing to allow digital advertising to be projected on the walls of City Hall. [Examiner]


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• There's a small chance of thunderstorms this week. [CBS 5]


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Boing Boing's wonderful things camp up with this beauty. Antonio Patrinostro, 43, was busted by cops last week after "ramming three cars and causing minor injuries" while driving up in Marin. It seems Patrinostro was "on a mission for Area 51." Naturally. has the scoop:

Patrinostro "told the officer that the vehicle could fly if he went fast enough, and basically just started bouncing off of cars," (California Highway Patrol officer Mary) Ziegenbein said.

"He was under the influence of cocaine, Valium and marijuana and stated that it was a top secret experiment with his doctor for Area 51 and the government," she added. "He also stated that he was working for a cure for AIDS by taking the drugs."

Wow. Who blows rails and then smokes pot? Freak, indeed.

At right, Area 51.