Early risers in Texas got a surprise when an unidentified flying object shot through the sky live on breakfast TV.

Fort Worth, Texas, television station KXAS was showing a live shot of traffic at 5:40 a.m. when the UFO could be seen flying across the screen, prompting a debate on the real nature of the flying object.

In the top right of the video, a bright light drops out of the sky and disappears.

A slow-motion replay of the footage appears to show a faint light veering off at an angle to the right of the picture.

Images clearly showed a flashing light making a V shape, as it comes out of the sky, suddenly changing directions and going up and down several times before disappearing completely.

Shocked by the live sighting, viewers speculated it could instead be a shooting star, a meteor, or even an insect reflecting light from the television tower where the camera is mounted.

The public is still divided, but many viewers have now have come forward insisting they do not doubt for one second the object they saw on TV was an alien spacecraft. Observers have also said that shooting stars or meteors cannot change course as suddenly as the object shown in the footage because they usually travel at an extremely high speed.

"I was sitting outside my neighbour's house and saw the flash of light in the sky go over the trees. Bill my neighbour saw it too," a viewer wrote on the station's Web site.

"This looks more like a meteor that has reached the Earth's atmosphere but due to the severe stress of gravity at hyper speeds has been redirected," wrote another.

Intrigued by the new mystery flying object, KXAS station managers have called in UFO investigators to review the footage.