Earlier this week, actor Russell Crowe posted a video on YouTube showing “time-lapsed” photos of what he thought might be a UFO. After the video went viral though, a reasonable, non-extraterrestrial explanation as to what the strange lights were emerged.

But first, some background on these three photos:

Russell Crowes UFO Photos Said to Be Sailboat Lights

(Image: YouTube screenshot)

Russell Crowes UFO Photos Said to Be Sailboat Lights

(Image: YouTube screenshot)

Russell Crowes UFO Photos Said to Be Sailboat Lights

(Image: YouTube screenshot)

Crowe, who recently started notably in “Les Miserables” and the in the just released “Broken City,” posted the video showing three, what he called, “time-lapsed” photos taken outside his New South Wales home office March 5. He tweeted more information regarding them shortly afterward.

Russell Crowes UFO Photos Said to Be Sailboat Lights

(Image: Twitter)

Watch the video:

The video now has more than 1.22 million views and has been reposted quite a few times on the video-sharing website. But Phil Poling with Parabreakdown (via NBC News) has an earthly source of the lights.

In his video explanation of the footage, Poling wrote that although Crowe didn’t use Photoshop or alter the images, the light streaks come from a moving sailboat.

“To be clear. What we are seeing here isn’t the entire sailboad. It’s just the top half of the rigging. The white running light is usually about half way up the mast,” Poling wrote.

Poling also said that although Crowe calls the photos time-lapsed, they’re really long exposure images.

Watch the Poling’s explanation on Parabreakdown:

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Related:

This story has been updated to correct the spelling for New South Wales.

(H/T: Daily Mail)