It looks pretty fake to me, but you decide for yourselves.
“Look! UFOs are coming!” With that cry, citizens of Leshan City saw a peculiar sight in the sky around 10 p.m. on July 26, reported by Sichuan Online.
Three round illuminated discs shined in the sky, lasting for more than 10 minutes before disappearing.
Professor Wang Sichao, from Purple Mountain Observatory of Chinese Academy of Science, said the identity of those discs still can’t be determined before comprehensive analysis.
Wang explained that formation of a mock sun could be influenced by many respects, including directions of ice crystals in sky, the number of ice crystals and the number of cirrus clouds. Those ice crystals are just like prisms that could cause sunshine to bend and form a circle around the sun. However, the situation was not adequate enough in Leshan to form this phenomenon, according to Wang.
He added that the identity of those illuminations could not be confirmed after analyzing other witness reports and pictures from different locations.
Aug 05 2010 
August 6th, 2010 at 12:48 am
Yeah, I’d agree the “three suns” in the sky photo looks kinda fakey to me, also. So, I did a little research on this story, as follows:
Here is the original source of this report, machine translated by Google.
[Although Google's "machine translation" capability makes original Chinese language ideogram characters weirdly appear as what could be termed "Chingrish," Yahoo's BabelFish translator service doesn't do a much better job --see here -- the translated differences are rather interesting and amusing!] 8^}
The _original_ source article, when translated via Google and Yahoo services, contains two distinct differences from the English version of the People’s Daily cited in this post:
The incident was observed at 8 pm, not 10 pm, and that there was allegedly a distinctive glow for 10 minutes _after_ the three lighted “objects” disappeared, according to the reporter’s source, who took the photo:
Yahoo: “In the dim sky presents 3 unclear luminophors [?] suddenly, illuminates the horizon well-illuminated, continues more than 10 minutes later only then collective vanishing…”
Google: “…the building over to see this scene: a dark sky suddenly three unidentified light will illuminate the sky well-illuminated, continuing 10 minutes after the group disappeared…”
As opposed to the version in the People’s Daily version:
“Three round illuminated discs shined in the sky, lasting for more than 10 minutes before disappearing.”
Of course, considering how rough the translations are, it’s difficult to say which version, whether the English version of People’s Daily or the two different translations of the original news article are correct, although both translations of the original source from the Sichuan online news service do say 8 pm (Google’s translation refers oddly to “20 o’clock on the July 26,” which in military or 24 hour clock time would be 8 pm), which is most likely accurate, given the single picture used in all sources (why no other pix shown or taken?), which shows a somewhat darkened blue-greenish sky, which is commensurate with an 8 pm time frame, about 15 to 20 minutes after sunset at this time of year, rather than 10 pm as the People’s Daily says, when the sky would be dark/black, as would be the nearby buildings and water shown in the lower part of the original picture, taken near the confluence of the Dadu and Min rivers bordering Leshan.
Note also no reflected light from the three “little suns” are shown on the tops of the buildings or water, although since the height of the “suns” is not stated, there might not have been any reflection or highlights due to unknown relative distance, if the phenomenon was genuinely real. Lots of open questions remain in such a preliminary or early investigation.
Anyway, it would seem, since it looks like there was only one witness, a “Lu Shan” of the city of Leshan in Sechuan province in southwestern China, who also took the photograph, there is some reason to think this may be yet another photoshopped hoax (note the heavy, anomalous pixelation around the sun-like images, for example, shown in the original and blowup photo in the source article), or perhaps just possibly an unusual atmospheric phenomenon related to a refraction or diffraction effect of the already set (or setting) sun on formations of high altitude ice-crystals, according to the Sechuan website’s articles, which I think People’s Daily derived and rewrote their article from, and which includes this follow-up article, asking for other witnesses to come forward, with any additional photos that may have been taken, including instructions of how to take and submit such photos.
Mt. Zijinshan [Purple Mountain] Observatory researcher and Professor Wang Sichao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also suggests, as noted in the PD excerpt above, that this photo may show a very rare possible “mock sun” or “parhelion anthellion” [not a actual scientific term--parhelion was probably intended] upper atmospheric effect, caused by a mirage-like reflection of the sun’s setting disk or rays through ice crystals aligned within cirrus cloud formations, although he goes on to say that the photo shows something quite _different_ than a “mock sun” or sundog display, and that further photos from other witnesses at differing locations and further scientific analysis is definitely required before the imagery in the photo might be explained by that kind of atmospheric phenomenon, which I’m dubious of as a possible explanation, since the “three suns” appear far too coherent and clearly distinct without any light diffusion or hazy gradation that mock sun phenomena would normally display.
[See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parhelion
Bottom line:
Probably neither UFOs, at all, nor perihelion or mock sun display—most probably a ‘shopped hoax, IMHO. Since this is also the second major alleged UFO incident that has appeared in the Chinese press and then been picked up by the foreign press with the usual references to UFOs, which is very
unlikely as a cause given the appearance and then disappearance described, plus considering the current relatively primitive state of Chinese ufology and media in a closed, controlled society, I suspect both the photographer and news sources involved may be having a bit of fun, like the the western media does during the “dog days of summer” syndrome (or dearth of usual news volume when many are on summer vacation, which often tends to bring forth more “esoteric,” humorous, and suspect stories and articles in American media particularly, IMHO).
I would suggest we’d all be better served by more research and deeper probing beyond initial superficial sources of such articles and/or photos is called for, before spreading further such memetic and questionable data in future, and that it would be a wiser and more balanced viewpoint to take before more of this sensationalistic or suspect kind of information is circulated without sufficient
provisos and empirical data. As they say, caveat emptor, indeed. 8^}
August 6th, 2010 at 1:14 am
Update/further sources:
Three suns in Sichuan — UFOs or sun dogs? [note the 'shopped photo in the comment thread, showing _five_ suns!]
Excerpt from the Tianshan Morning Post:
“3 unknown luminous body also lead to a group of people gather around Leshan, careful Lu Shan quickly taken by camera phone this rare sight. He describes the unknown light first appeared in the west to the naked eye to judge its diameter about 20 to 50 cm; 10 minutes, the south from the building the speed of 1 meter per minute, slowly moving to the north, and the radius of becoming small, up to disappear, “as the last as the sun, the light became as gentle as the sunset.” There are people in the crowd exclaimed the public “UFO”! Lu Shan but that probably is “the reflection of the sun or other more strange phenomenon.” He examined a lot of information and their photographs contrast, is still unable to find scientific evidence to support this phenomenon. So, he called for help to the newspaper.”
Hmmmmm….sounds more like a natural atmospheric phenomena, from that description of the speed, movement, and shrinking radius of the “sun disks” in transit before disappearing. The color also sure seems just like the setting sun’s.
I still lean toward ’shopped hoax over natural phenomena, though–the photographer may be belatedly backtracking to give his photo more significance or authenticity than obviously a hoaxed one would. I wonder if a hoaxed photo with this kind of media buzz within a communist state could incur some legal penalty or other personal cost if found to be a fraud?
It’ll be interesting to see if there will be much media follow-up or any resolution of this story–to be continued? Stay tuned…