Lights and explosion in the sky spotted from Colorado Thursday morning explained

Video from Woodland Park provided to KKTV by Ashton J 4/27/23.
Published: Apr. 27, 2023 at 12:40 PM MDT|Updated: Apr. 27, 2023 at 6:35 PM MDT
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - Multiple people started reaching out to KKTV 11 News Thursday morning after they noticed lights in the sky southeast of Colorado Springs.

Video shared with 11 News shot by Mario Sanchez in the Monte Vista area at about 2:52 a.m. on Thursday shows multiple lights that appear to be objects falling from a far distance. Mario explained he heard a “loud explosion.” You can watch Mario’s video at the bottom of this article.

A second video shared from Woodland Park around the same time shows the debris much clearer. You can watch the video shared by Ashton at the top of this article.

SpaceX confirmed the objects were tied to some of their equipment:

“Overnight, the 18th Space Defense Squadron confirmed re-entry of SpaceX’s Crew-5 Dragon trunk occurred on Thursday, April 27,” part of a statement from SpaceX Media Relations to 11 News reads. “This hardware was nominally jettisoned from the Dragon spacecraft during the return of Crew-5 astronauts from the International Space Station on March 11, 2023. NASA and SpaceX are committed to safe commercial crew operations and are working closely to improve orbital hardware demise modeling.”

SpaceX added that if you believe you came across the debris you shouldn’t touch it, and contact the SpaceX Debris Hotline at 1-866-623-0234 or email recovery@spacex.com.

Astrophysicist Dr. Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics also explained what the lights were on Twitter:

Video from Mario S. Shot at 2:52 a.m. from Monte Vista looking to the southeast.