Mystery UFO in Queenstown Remarkables identified as plane

It was not a meteor, but it is no longer a UFO.

A strange object spotted in the sky over Queenstown on Wednesday night was actually a plane.

Yesterday, the Otago Daily Times reported Matt Wilcox saw something odd in the sky.

Catching it on camera, he said it was visible for about a minute before it went behind the Remarkables and out of sight.

Mosgiel resident Bruce Smaill — a crew chief at Dunedin Airport — said it was actually a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, operated by LATAN airlines, flying a repatriation flight from Sydney to Santiago, Chile, flying at 37,000 feet.

He used binoculars to get a closer look at it and could see the anti-collision light flashing.

"I found it [the plane] on Flight Radar straight away, and then there was another one about an hour later, on the exact same flight path."

Southland Astronomical Society astronomer Mike Bailey had initially examined Mr Wilcox's footage and believed the object to be a meteor.