UFOs over India-China border could be Chinese lanterns: probe

The mystery over the unidentified luminous objects seen on the horizon over a lake in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir appears to have been cracked with security agencies believing it to be "Chinese lanterns".

Earlier last month, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) wrote to the Government about sighting of some Orange-Yellow luminous flying objects on the horizon over Pangong lake, located 160 km from Leh township.

The Leh-based 14-Corps was alerted by the ITBP which also reported sighting of the light-emitting body to its Udhampur-based Northern Command prompting an intensive monitoring of the flying object, official sources said.

Scientists from various organisations were brought to Himalayan township of Leh and a thorough study was conducted in consultation with experts of the Indian Air Force, whose radars were also unable to pick up any signal due to the flying of the unidentified objects on the horizon of the lake, 45 km of which is in India while the remaining 90 km lies in under control of China's People Liberation Army.

There was a suggestion that one of these flying objects needed to be shot down by the heat-seeking weaponry of the Indian Army, a proposal which was shot down as this region had last heard a gun shot only on October 29, 1962, during hostilities with China.

It was also thought that this move could trigger tension in the region, the sources said.

Intelligence agencies, with their sparse presence in this region, however, opined that this could be a psychological operation of the Chinese army and a possibility of launching "Chinese lanterns" during day break and in night was looked

into by various astronomers, scientists and experts who have studied glaciers for years together, the sources said.

Experts from Ladakh-based Indian Astronomical Observatory and other scientists then studied the phenomenon of the luminous object and found that it disappeared in 12 to 18 minutes.

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