An explosion at an electrical power station in New York City on Thursday evening lit up the sky with an eerie blue light.
By late Thursday night officials said the event was caused by nothing more than a transformer explosion.
“A sort of unnatural, fluorescent shade of blue,” said Bill San Antonio, 28, who was watching Thursday night from inside a terminal at La Guardia Airport.
“We thought it was a U.F.O.,” said Yiota Androtsakis, a longtime Astoria resident.
Ms. Androtsakis was not the only one. In the earliest moments, hundreds of Twitter users from across the city posted videos of the eerie lights, causing many on social media to fear an alien invasion.
“No injuries, no fire, no evidence of extraterrestrial activity,” the New York Police Department tweeted, adding later that the explosion was not suspicious. There was one Con Edison employee nearby when the fire started, and the authorities said he was unharmed.
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