Mysterious Flashes Light Up New Jersey Sky

The flashes included colored lights and occurred along with power outages.

Bright flashes of light in the midnight sky over parts of New Jersey mystified residents overnight, coming at the same time as scattered power outages.

The flickering lights began sometime between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. and lasted for more than a minute.

Michael Vida, 30, said he was awakened by beeps from battery backups that kick on when power is out.

When he got up, he said "it was practically daylight outside, and I opened up the blinks and all kinds of crazy colors that were going off -- red, blue, green, yellow lights."

"I had no idea what it was," he told NBC New York. "I was half asleep, the science fiction buff in me wanted to think it was some alien thing going on."

Vida started shooting it on video with his cell phone -- you can see the video above.

His was one of thousands of homes without power overnight, when there was also a heavy rainstorm.

Vida's power was restored at about 7:30 a.m.

Police had no comment when asked by NJ.com about the lights.

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