New Delhi, Sep 12 (ANI): The Chinese scientist, who allegedly claimed of seeing a UFO during the July 22 solar eclipse, has denied all such reports, insisting that what he saw was an unidentified object, but ‘not a UFO’.

Ji Haisheng, director of Nanjing-based Purple Mountain Observatory, has clarified that he hasn’t made any such claim.

“That’s false news. I said ‘an unidentified object’ not ‘an unidentified flying object,’” he said.

However, in a Sept 7 report, the Daily Mail said that China had “confirmed 40 minutes of footage of the object was captured during this summer’s solar eclipse and that research has already started on a year-long investigation to find out what it is.”

The British newspaper quoted Ji as having said: “During the July 22 total solar eclipse observation, China had discovered near the sun an unidentified object, it’s physical nature remains to be further studied.”

But Ji has scotched that report by saying that he does not know why his explanation about a bright spot close to the sun, very likely to be the result of some coronal activity filmed during the total eclipse, was misunderstood.

“Obviously, there have been misunderstandings,” he said.

He added that on Sept 2 he received a call from a journalist who asked him about UFO images taken during the solar eclipse, reports the China Daily.

“I was confused and retorted, ‘what UFO?’” he said.

Then the journalist referred to the photograph of a bright spot near the sun, posted on the observatory’s website as a summary report about Chinese observation of the eclipse.

Then Ji realised that the reporter was talking about the bright spot as one of the best examples of Chinese scientists’ success in capturing some fresh and clear images for up to 40 minutes of the corona of a solar eclipse.

Ji told the journalist that “people were being organized to study the data, complete the analysis and reveal the scientific results. That will take at least one year to finalize.”

But, a week later, both the quotes ended up in the Daily Mail report as confirmation of “UFO ‘filmed for 40 minutes’ by Chinese scientists during solar eclipse”. (ANI)