A TikTok video which purports to show a UFO crash site on a remote Pacific island has ignited a debate online.
Allegedly discovered on Starbuck Island in Kiribati, the video shows a person using Google Maps to locate the wreckage, after zooming in several times.
Uploaded by @googleMapsFun, the TikTok vid has been liked over 1.6 million times, with many users seemingly believing that the object in question really could be a UFO.
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Take a look below:
Starbuck Island is thought to be completely uninhabited, with little in the way of life to be found anywhere on its 1,620 acres of land.
There is no freshwater to be found there, while its location, smack-bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, makes it incredibly difficult to reach.
What we eventually see in the short video is a dark, metallic structure, one which looks to have been damaged at some point.
The image resolution is fairly grainy, making it difficult for casual observers to make out its shape or origin.
@googlemapsfun captioned the video: "Could this be an UFO crash?" but many in the comments weren't quite so convinced.
According to some TikTok users, the object may instead be remnants of a ship wreckage, a distinct possibility given the island's geographical location. With it being virtually untouched by humanity, a wreckage could remain there for years, or even decades, undisturbed.
"It's part of a wrecked ship from the 1800s. The tide has dragged it across the sand bank through the decades," one person wrote in the comments.
Another added: "Loads of ships were wrecked on that island in the 19th century."
A third user boldly suggests: "It's a leftover building from Guano collection in the 19th Century. It's named Starbuck after the captain who discovered it."
Since uploading this contentions video, @googlemapsfun has gained a massive following on TikTok, making a number of similar 'discoveries' on the popular social media app.
Much of its content is now more comedic in nature, often showing the user zooming into an apparent 'UFO', before going on to 'street view' where aliens have then been cleverly photo-shopped in.
Nevertheless, questions do remain over the Starbuck Island sighting, as this discovery had been made long before the TikTok video was uploaded.
Could it really be the remains of a crashed UFO? For now, the mystery remains unsolved.
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Tom Fenton