Blood RED SKY

The apocalypse seemingly arrived early in China’s eastern port city of Zhoushan with the sky appearing blood red over the weekend. What the hell? Turns out that the horrific hue was caused by the lights of boats.

Residents took to social media to share photos and videos of the sky turning an eerie shade of red, with many commenting that it looked like a scene from a horror film.

The blood-red sky made headlines across China, which is famous for its smoggy skies and polluted waterways. But this time, it was something else—the lights of boats and cars, as well as red lanterns hung for a festival.

The Chinese city of Zhoushan is in a bay, and when it gets dark outside, all of those lights reflecting off of the water create a red hue in the sky. It looks like a scene out of The Walking Dead or some other post-apocalyptic movie—and people freaked out.

According to CNN, one woman posted on Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) that she “was scared to death” by the sky and that she thought there had been an earthquake. Other posts said that people were taking pictures and videos of it because they thought it was a sign that something terrible was about to happen.

What happened was, a boat owner decided to take his vessel out and have a little fun on the water at night, but he forgot to turn off his lights when he returned home. And then it rained, and those lights refracted through droplets, creating a red sky.

The man whose boat caused this whole mess told reporters that he was “sorry for what happened.”

“It’s not my intention to scare people,” he said.

People have actually seen this before: In 2016, another city in China had its own blood-red skies when boat lights reflected off Lake Taihu at night.