You have seen clear blue skies, cotton candy skies and midnight blue skies, but have you seen a red sky?!
Short clips of a mysterious red hue blanketing the sky in China had been circulating on Twitter over the last few days.
This strange phenomenon was seen on the evening of 7 May over the city of Zhoushan in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang.
The lack of explanation for the apocalyptic-looking phenomenon has spurred concerns, curiosity and excitement among local residents as well as netizens around the world.
In one of the viral videos, local residents are seen looking perplexed as they wondered about the mysterious red sky.
Some feared that this was an indicator of the end of the world, and pointed to the destructive activities done by humans as the cause.
Red light explained
According to Chinese state media outlet, Global Times, local meteorologists claim that the occurrence is due to “the refraction and scattering of light“, most likely from red fishing boat lights in the port.
“It was foggy and cloudy in Zhoushan on Saturday and it was drizzling at the time of the red sky, which might have been caused by the reflection of light from the low-level clouds.”
“When weather conditions are good, more water in the atmosphere forms aerosols which refract and scatter the light of fishing boats and create the red sky seen by the public,” they were quoted as saying.
In a similar case, the skies of Pulau Pangkor appeared green due to squid jigging.
Netizens are not convinced
Despite the explanation by meteorologists, the public remains skeptical and cited different reasons for the sky’s red hue.
Some suggested that it is a result of suspicious activity such as weapons testing or simply pollution.
Whereas others took the opportunity to make morbid jokes about the television sitcom Wandavision, the end of the world as well as alien communication.
Watch the video below:
A red sky appears near Shanghai China pic.twitter.com/sdUCm42ECs
— RawNews1st?? (@Raw_News1st) May 7, 2022
What do you think? Do you think the fishing boats’ lights are the culprit? Let us know in the comments!
