Everybody has a theory about those lights in the sky

Exploding space junk? Prove it.

Even if you could, which you can't, space debris is among the least interesting of the theories for what whooshed through Hampton Roads around 10 p.m. Sunday.

It could have been, of course, a meteor, a UFO, the second coming of Christ, a fighter jet that crashed, a North Korean intercontinental missile, or perhaps a Hollywood publicity stunt. None of which you would ever get confirmed, because of a conspiracy between the government and the media to black out the news.

Online commenters suggested all of that, plus a few other possibilities, Monday.

If it was aliens, posters debated whether they would be seeking overweight people or skinny people to eat.

"Obviously," wrote one commenter on The Virginian-Pilot story about the mysterious fireball in the sky, "a highly intelligent race capable of traveling the vast distances of space would be on a low-fat diet so I'm not too worried about being an item on their evening buffet. Some of my ultra lean friends, however, may want to pack up their hybrids and head west."

Another person suggested that, having done a lot of research since Sunday night, perhaps what many people heard and saw was a secret government airplane called the Aurora, which you can find by typing "Aurora Aircraft" into Google, which means the secret's out.

Some questioned not the government but themselves.

"The lights lingered like the flash of an out-dated camera," a commenter wrote. "Thinking about it for a minute, I realized it was right over the treetops and there is no way a helicopter would be that low. Then I thought outloud in a rather indifferent manner: 'I just saw a UFO.' My father probably thought I was on drugs..."

Someone posting under the name "Hushhush" was driving along South Independence Boulevard, blasting music from 96X and saw four bright flashes, but the radio drowned out any sound. Hushhush wanted to know why people from Delaware to North Carolina reported hearing and seeing something, but only two newspapers covered it:

"So basically the Richmond Times and the Virginia Pilot have something about this, and all the huge papers don't. This smells like a coverup people."

A man saying he was from Norfolk had a more provincial conspiracy in mind: "They will probably close the midtown tunnel until they figure out what it was."

On the Web site www.godlikeproductions.com, a proclaimed home of conspiracy theorists and lunatics, someone figured that if it was a meteor and missed killing people, well, it's only a matter of time.

"Our whole entire planet, every square inch of it from the Artic to Anartic is surrounded by giant rocks and metals from space... We could get it from any direction at all. And no one really knows."

Someone else thought the damage had already been done. Posting under "Something Just Crashed in Virginia!!!!!!," the person wrote:

"Not to worry... was probably just my 401k."

Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341. lon.wagner@pilotonline.com