LUXEMBOURG-VILLE — Widespread confusion and panic overtook much of Luxembourg-ville and its environs today after an object resembling “a giant ball of fire” appeared in the sky, according to hundreds of witnesses. Jeannette Kuchen, who commutes to Luxembourg from Metz, says that as soon as she exited the Gare this morning, she observed hundreds of people running and screaming.
“A man was crying ‘my eyes, my eyes, it burns,’ and there were lots of people hunched over, protecting their faces from something in the sky,” she said. “I instinctively looked up, and that’s when I saw it, or rather felt it.”
“An explosion, or something, right above us, but it wasn’t moving,” she continued. “After recovering from temporary blindness, I covered my face with a copy of L’essentiel and ran around in circles shouting ‘on va mourir, on va mourir.’”
“It just seemed like the right thing to do, under such circumstances,” she added.
Igor Marković, an IT tech who always wears sunglasses, even inside at work, and spends his morning commute listening to hip hop on large Beats-style headphones, says that he didn’t notice anything usual.
“What explosion?” he said.
Another commuter, originally from Athens, posited his own theory — one that experts quickly dismissed as being scientifically baseless.
“It’s just the sun,” he said. “It feels good.”
Officials say that while they don’t yet know what is causing the massive and continuous burning of trapped gas in the lower atmosphere, they have a few theories.
“It could be that a significant amount of fuel leaked out of a Cargolux jet as it was passing over the city, and due to some strange weather phenomena, it ignited while simultaneously getting caught up in a swirl of wind currents,” said the Grand Duchy’s chief science inspector Claude Lucke. “Or it could be that there was some sort of nuclear accident at Cattenom, just over the border in France, but that they forgot to tell us about it, which would not be very surprising.”
“Whatever is the source of this frightening but oddly satisfying and pleasantly warming ball of fire, we will continue our investigation and deliver the results to the public within four to six weeks,” he added.
