When Western Web surfers search for images of "Tiananmen" on Google, they get row upon row of tanks, the indelible afterimage of the tragedy of 1989.
The result was an afterimage, in which the white areas of the original had turned black and the black areas white.
Skeptical scientists, baffled by the whole affair, were inclined to dismiss the fireballs as an illusion, perhaps an afterimage of light which remained in the pilots' eyes after .