Oklahoma residents baffled as night sky is lit up by a UFO - or was it?

A father and his young children spotted a bright light moving across the sky in Oklahoma and they believe it could be a UFO. 

Steve Aragona was on the front lawn of his home in Oklahoma City at 7.29pm CST on Monday when the object lit up the sky.

He posted video of the incident online. In it, one child said it looked like a shooting star, but was told it was moving too slowly. Another child thought it must be a UFO.

Suddenly a hazy circle came off the object as it moved, like it was blowing a smoke ring, and moved in the opposite direction.

'Looks like it's separating from itself,' Aragona, before one of the kids said the ring looked more like a sound wave.

Some people who saw the video thought it could be a Space X rocket that took of about the same time from Florida.

However, the launch was at 6.56pm EST, making it an hour-and-a-half later than when the video was shot.

The video was also shot facing west, and Florida is to the east of Oklahoma, causing experts to believe it must be something else.

Oklahoma University aerospace professor Ken Carson told KFOR news it looked like a rocket taking off, even if it wasn't the Space X launch.

'It looked like a normal ascent of a rocket with a booster separating staging. Its a new blast, if you will, of oxidized propellant, coming off the separation of that first stage,' he said. 

The Vandenberg Space Force base in Southern California said it was not one of its rockets. 

Suddenly a hazy circle came off the object as it moved, like it was blowing a smoke ring, and moved in the opposite direction

More than 100,000 claimed alien sightings have been submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center between 2000 and 2023

More than 100,000 claimed alien sightings have been submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center between 2000 and 2023, according to data submitted by the Center and the US Census Bureau.

The national average of supposed alien sightings between those years nationwide is 34.3 per 100,000 residents.

Unsurprisingly, the most are in Lincoln Country, Nevada, which is home to Area 51, with 820.9 sightings per 100,000 residents.

Area 51 is one of the most famous classified air force bases that has been full of urban legends about aliens and UFOs.

Other areas that have all had nearly 500-600 alien sightings between 2003 and 2023 are Alpine County, California, Petroleum County, Montana, and La Paz County, Arizona.