What Is This Strange Ball of Light That Appeared at a Synagogue in the Middle of the Night?

It’s being described as “spooky,” “creepy,” “paranormal,” “a ghost,” a possible UFO sighting or simply a natural phenomenon.

A mysterious ball of light was captured on security camera in the middle of the night at a Ukrainian synagogue once targeted by Molotov cocktails.

The video shows the spherical shaped ball of light which appears to be the size of a basketball floating in the air, hovering and moving around for at least 30 seconds.

Rabbi Michael Oishie thought it was unusual so he posted it on Facebook May 28 after security guards at the Giymat Rosa Synagogue in Zaporizhia in southeastern Ukraine told him to check out the recording captured at 4 a.m.

Two weeks later, his mystery video is the talk of British tabloids.

“Is this a ghost or a UFO? Spooky video taken by rabbi outside his synagogue captures mysterious object,” wrote the Daily Mirror.

The Express asked, “Are mystery orbs visiting religious buildings across globe UFOs, ghosts or angels?”

“A BIZARRE floating light which shows ‘aliens or ghosts’ was caught on camera at a synagogue - just days after a similar sighting at a Buddhist temple,” the tabloid added.

In a Facebook comment to the rabbi, Nachum Gili Gorelick thought it was a bug.

Another commenter quipped, “An angel was caught on security camera!!”

Menachem Garber presented the hypothesis that “Infrared light can ‘blind’ the camera. It was someone with infrared flashlight.”

To get to the bottom of it, TheBlaze contacted Rabbi Oishie, who had no idea his Facebook post had gotten such wide attention, including, in the past 24 hours, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express, Huffington Post U.K. and the Daily Star.

He said that after one of his friends suggested it was most likely a natural phenomenon known as a “ball lightning,” that’s the theory he’s been going with.

A ball lightning appears as a sphere of light, coming in various sizes, and is often associated with lightning storms. What makes them unusual is that they appear for many long seconds, like the image in the video Oishie posted.

He said he’s not sure what the weather was that night since he was asleep, but that it rained all the next day.

“People love to believe strange things; they look for weird stuff. I’m not that type,” Oishie told TheBlaze by phone.

But the rabbi was amused his synagogue got such wide exposure and hoped that the attention would help get the word out to local Jews.

“I can say that I’m happy the ball lightning came because it’s an opportunity to show our synagogue to local Jews in another way, not only in religious terms,” Oishie said.

Oishie is an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which works heavily on outreach to nonobservant Jews, premised on the belief that when otherwise nonreligious Jews perform a single good deed or religious act, it can help tip the scales and bring about a redemption of the world.

“It’s an opportunity for us to bring the synagogue to the people … so the synagogue will be talked about among people in the city,” the rabbi said.

The Molotov cocktails were thrown at the synagogue last year, he said, “when tensions were high.”

“Thank God, since then it’s quiet,” the rabbi added.

(H/T: Algemeiner)