A streak of light beaming out of a craggy volcano looks like the stuff of science fiction, but one social media post says it's not. "A meteor hit the most active volcano in Indonesia, Mount Merapi," claims a July 9 Facebook post that has received over 3,500 interactions on the social media platform. "This is so amazing." USA TODAY has reached out to the user who posted the claim for comment. A series of photos accompanying the post showing a greenish streak of light against a somewhat dark and cloudy sky is most certainly incredible, almost unreal. But it is real. The images capture a flying meteor from one of two meteor showers expected during the spring and early summer.

On May 28, Indonesian photographer Gunarto Song shared the three photos he had taken on May 27 to Instagram with the caption, "a meteor fell into the peak of Mount Merapi?", Mashable SE Asia reported.  Speaking to CNN Indonesia, Song said taking the photo was pure happenstance as he had originally come to Mount Merapi to snap a panorama of the volcano against the night sky. He noticed a light coming down just as he was finishing his shoot and was able to capture the event using a long-exposure technique, which makes the light appear like an elongated beam. 

Hanik Humaida, head of Yogyakarta's Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center, confirmed to CNN Indonesia that a flash of light was observed on one of the agency's CCTV cameras used to monitor volcanic activity on the night of May 27. 

Since two active meteor showers were expected during the month of May – Eta Aquariids between April 19 and May 28 and the Arietids between May 14 and June 24 – experts at Indonesia's National Institute of Aeronautics and Space, or LAPAN, suspect one of those  is what Song caught on camera. 

The light's brilliant greenish hue is not uncommon. When meteoroids – usually chunks of an asteroid and sometimes comets – enter Earth's atmosphere, they burn up due to friction. That produces colorful lights, or meteors, that can come in many shades depending on their chemical composition. Meteoroids made of calcium typically give off a purple color, while those consisting of magnesium will appear green or teal. 

Unclear whether meteor hit volcano

While the picture captured a real phenomenon, it's not clear if the caption's description of the meteor striking the volcano is correct. Humaida said no seismic signals or sounds indicating a fallen object were recorded near the volcano. The angle from which the picture was taken means the meteor could be far behind the volcano, just aligned with the top from the camera's perspective. USA TODAY used Google Translate and other translation services to interpret Bahasa Indonesia into English. 

A moment of sheer luck.

But as for how Gunarto managed to actually capture the streak of light on his camera, the photographer explained to CNN Indonesia that it was done via a long-exposure technique whereby his camera shutter was set to remain open for a longer amount of time than usual. "I set the shutter speed at four seconds. This ensured that the photos (of the light) would appear long. But the light was round-shaped, it was so fast but it was indeed a round light that fell," he said.

Considering that meteor shower streaks are extremely fleeting, Gunarto was also pretty lucky to have been in the right place, at the right time, and with the right equipment. His original intent was to capture the night views of Indonesia's most active volcano from the Batu Alien (Alien Rock) site – an area nearby the volcano where a giant rock had landed after it blasted off the top of the volcano during an eruption.

He said that at the moment the streak appeared, he was focusing on some clouds that had suddenly appeared at the volcano's peak, and was immediately ready to capture the sight with his gear all set to the right configurations. Considering that many equate shooting stars with luck, it can safely be said that Gunarto was extremely lucky in this case.

A mysterious video captured in the skies of Japan has now emerged as the hottest debating topic among conspiracy theorists and alien enthusiasts. The eerie clip was captured by a person named Chris. The video was later uploaded to YouTube by popular conspiracy theory channel 'The Hidden Underbelly 2.0', where it gained massive popularity. In the video, a UFO can be seen screeching across the skies, and it is being followed by a group of orbs flying in a triangular formation. The event was captured over Kagoshima city in Japan. Interestingly, the UFO sighting happened at a place very near to the Sakurajima volcano.

Source: Webcam

Mysterious Green Beam At Sakurajima Volcano Captured On Live Cam

In the video below you will see a strange "green beam" captured from the Kyoto Live Cam at the Sakurajima volcano, this occurrence I put in the video lasts over 4 minutes, but some last a shorter period of time and some longer. Links to the live cam will be provided above the video.

Note- When you first open the Kyoto cam all you see is a black screen, but about every ten minutes, give or take a minute or two, these green laser-like beams appear and give of a little light show.

Some speculate the beam is coming from some type of laser  in order to collect scientific data and research does show that lazer technology does exist exactly for that purpose, although I haven't found any official statement saying that is what this is.

Correction to video commentary- The email leading me to this live camera came last night, in the video I state it apparently started last night, but further research shows this has been happening since mid-May, at least, as Tweets found at the website Portal Mie, show images of this green beam from May 19 and 20th, both shown below. The Portal Mie website also asks if this isn't lasers. 

In 2004, via O S A Publishing we see that "Laser spectroscopy enables online, in situ monitoring of volcanoes. In combination with fiber optic sensors, it may one day serve as the basis for a new type of eruption warning system," but there are no images showing whether this technology appears as a "green beam."

In December 2013, LiveScience published an article about lasers and lava flow and described how lasers are used to create  3D images of volcanic activity and lava flow, using planes equipped with thousands of lasers, but in none of the images seen so far, nor the tweet images shown above or the video, do we see any planes.... just the beam.

June 2015, via ResearchGate we see another article discussing the use of lasers to monitor volcano, again no images on the color or even if these lasers would manifest in appearance the way we see in the video below.

Mt. SAKURAJIMA may enter big eruption soon or rater as the volcanic red glow reflection started continuously  since 4 am Japan time on 06JAN2020 which is about 1.5 hours ago and still going on. You may visit WEBCAM https://www.kts-tv.co.jp/livecam/ and observe the WEB cam before it ceases or changes to serious to big eruption, no one can guess now! The mysterious green &  blue beam lights are also sparking continuously though it has been slow for past one month and tonight is the first time I have observed the frequency of appearance since I noticed the different phenomenon of SAKURAJIMA watching every night since.

Links mentioned and shown in the video are:

http://webcams.volcanodiscovery.com/Sakurajima

http://webcam-svo2.pr.kyoto-u.ac.jp/local/camera.html

Source: https://allnewspipeline.com/Mysterious_Green_Beam_Sakurajima.php