Chinese internet users from North China's Beijing, Tianjin Municipality, and Hebei Province were amazed by a dragon-like cloud in the sky on Saturday afternoon with many of them though it auspicious, but an expert later explained it was just the contrail of a rocket launched earlier that day. Photo: Screenshot from video by thepaper.com

"Look! There's a dragon in the sky!"

"It must be the ladder to heaven."

Chinese internet users in North China including people in Beijing, Tianjin Municipality, and Hebei Province were amazed by a dragon-like cloud seen during sunset on Saturday afternoon with many of them writing that it portended something good until their balloon was burst and an expert later revealed it was just the vapor trail left by a rocket launched earlier in the day.

The long cloud that switched back and forth across the sky could be imagined to be a dragon with tail that extended to the horizon, according to video posted by thepaper.com on Sunday.

"It was the vapor trail of the rocket called Kuaizhou launched at Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (in North China's Shanxi Province) at about 4:50 pm," Yu Jun, editor-in-chief of Guokr.com said.

Yu explained that contrails consist of vapor from airplanes or rockets at a high altitude. Kuaizhou's trail was illuminated by the setting sun at an aircraft's cruising altitude and reflected across the sky in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

"The trajectory was a straight line when it was first produced. But it was soon distorted into other shapes by the winds at a high altitude," he noted.

Weather.com.cn on Sina Weibo reported that the Kuaizhou-1A rocket carried a payload of six satellites.

The satellites will mainly be used to monitor the environment, emergency communication enhancement, and disaster emergency monitoring, news reports said.

Thepaper.com