What is this mysterious light seen in the California night sky?

SAN FRANCISCO -- At a time when the Bay Area is blanketed in Christmas lights, Wednesday night's sky stole the show.

"It was brighter than a normal cloud, especially at this time of night," Bryan Louie told sister station KGO in San Francisco.

A mysterious light was spotted in the sky after 5:30 p.m., a time when most are making their way home from work.

"It looked kind of like a key, almost," Louie said.

Dathao Becker was visiting the Bay Area from San Diego.

"I just thought it was a kind of weird formation," Becker said.

"I thought somebody was trying to spell something out in the sky, but I couldn't read what it was," Aparna Sarma said. "So I just moved on with the rest of my night."

However, the mystery light lingered on the minds of others.

Sky7 was flying above San Francisco when it captured the bright light.

"I saw a moving cloud, then it formed into a question mark," Palo Alto resident Ransom Soderberg said. "I don't know, maybe it's a sign."

A sign from where? Or rather, from whom?

"I'm definitely a big believer in UFO phenomenon," Elizabeth Matuzak said. "I definitely think it's a UFO."

KABC, our sister station in Southern California, reports the director of the Griffith Observatory, Dr. Edwin Krupp, confirmed the light was a bolide meteor that entered the earth's atmosphere. Dr. Krupp said the meteor could likely fit in your hand, but what people saw was the compressed air around it.

Many people on social media posted photos of the unidentified light:

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