Last week, the Otago Daily Times featured a clip on the video sharing website YouTube entitled "UFO over Dunedin NZ", which sparked debate over the mystery object.
Dunedin Astronomical Society educational director Ash Pennell said the object was not a UFO but Jupiter - "the fourth brightest object in the sky not man-made".
The giveaway in the clip, which was filmed over two consecutive nights, was that Jupiter was in the same position as the "unidentified object", he said.
When planets were low in the sky, they had a tendency to change colours as you were observing them through a "double thickness of atmosphere".
Jupiter would soon be obscured by the sun, before reappearing as a morning object during late April, he said. The week-old YouTube clip has attracted more than 17,000 viewers.
