Mysterious green fireball above Australia's outback leaves experts baffled

The object was witnessed at around 1:00 am local time by night workers at several locations in Pilbara, a remote mining area in the State of Western Australia (WA).

Video captured by them of the incident showed the object in bright green-blue light, silently passing across the dark sky at a steady speed.

Glen Nagle from the NASA Deep Space Network in Australia's capital of Canberra said the object was also witnessed across a vast territory encompassing three Australian states.

"People have captured something very special here," Nagle said.

While the stunning phenomenon left many astronomy enthusiasts in heated speculation, the nature of the flying object remained unidentified even by experts.

It was most likely a natural object, according to Renae Sayers from Curtin University's Space, Science and Technology Centre in WA.

However, Sayers said experts can't agree upon what the object is because it didn't match the flying pattern of normal space debris which regularly falls to earth.

"The jury's still out, it could be space debris, or it could be a grazing fireball encounter," she said.

Other experts suggest the greenish blue light of the object indicates it is a natural object rich in iron, most likely an asteroid or a meteoroid.

Dr Ellie Sansom from Curtin University said meteoroids may contain valuable information about the early history of the universe but it is hard to recover them when they fall in the Pilbara area because the local landscape is already covered with very similar material to that of meteoroids.