Florida beachgoer spots UFO flashing across sky during thunderstorm

A beachgoer in Florida, US observed a peculiar "ball of light" shoot across the sky while filming a big storm off the coast of Fort Lauderdale Beach, raising questions about whether it could possibly be a UFO.

Carmen Rich, a 29-year-old, posted the startling footage showing the "UFO" fly past within a split second on his Facebook profile and seemed stunned in the video

"Wow, did you see that just shoot across?" he said in the video.

Rich, who is a financial analyst, later, asks if anyone else saw the mysterious object before stopping the video to review it. After capturing the object, he shows it to his step-sister Jennifer Rich, who missed it.

Hailing from Boston, Rich claimed the object was not a drone due to its speed of "couple of thousand miles per hour," and insisted that it could be an alien craft, which the US government won't reveal to the public.

He said: "It was the fastest thing I've seen in my entire life and if it was going that fast I figured it would be making some type of noise but it didn't. The thing in the back was a plane and that's where you can get a gauge for how fast this thing was. Jennifer turned around, blinked and then missed it. 

"I saw it past the phone with my own eyes. I shouted immediately and ended the video because I wanted to see if I actually did get it. I wondered if I was crazy. It was much bigger with my own eyes. The camera shows a light ball but in person, it looked much bigger."

Rich, who does not believe that "we're alone in the universe" thinks the object "was something the public won't know about for a very long time, if at all".

"I showed some local guys and they said they'd never seen anything like it before in their life," he said.

The video sparked debate on social media about whether it was an extraterrestrial event or lightning, as he denied hearing any cracks.

One Facebook user commented: "Wow, That was incredible!"

A second surmised: "They [aliens] love thunderstorms. This is how they charge their flying ships. I have also seen, photographed and filmed it several times myself."

A third user said: "Wow, I had to take a double look when you mentioned it, that's crazy! Good catch!"

Another suggested: "It may be a reflection of the car passing by, it happens exactly as the car passed by, or you never know what that could be. Maybe it is a UFO."