UFO-style fireworks display in Thailand captivates crowd

NASA couldn't have done it any better.

A so-called UFO fireworks display has taken on the spectacular scenes of a shuttle launch after being sent soaring into the sky at a festival in Thailand.

Footage taken at the Bamboo Rocket Festival, an annual event in South-East Asia, shows men lighting a giant wheel before running for safety.

As a plume of smoke engulfs the launch site, the wheel, propelled by blazing rockets, twirls away from land and into orbit.

The object, leaving behind a figure-eight trail of smoke, soars into the clouds and nearly out of sight before the last rocket cuts out and it begins to fall back to earth, its return journey cushioned by the deployment of a parachute.