The truth is out there … it is just not quite as exciting as was hoped.
A large, glowing spiral that lit up the skies over the UK on Monday night and prompted speculation of an alien encounter is believed to have been caused by a SpaceX rocket.
The growing swirl, visible for several minutes across Britain, was initially thought by some to be an aircraft, or even extraterrestrial activity, but has now been attributed to a launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Elon Musk’s company SpaceX held a launch for the US government shortly before 1.50pm local time (1750 GMT) and it is understood the Falcon 9 rocket’s frozen exhaust plume caused the display.
The Met Office said on the social media site X: “The rocket’s frozen exhaust plume appears to be spinning in the atmosphere and reflecting the sunlight, causing it to appear as a spiral in the sky.”
Lord Dover, a senior technical officer at the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory, said the spiral was visible for about 10 minutes from 7.52pm – moving across the sky before dipping over the horizon.
“(The SpaceX) rocket… dumped fuel in the upper atmosphere to shed weight before returning to Earth,” he said.
“This fuel formed an expanding, swirling cloud that developed into a giant spiral shape as it travelled over the Atlantic.
“These sightings are becoming common in some parts of the world, but it’s still unusual for rocket launches to be visible like this from the UK.”
The celestial display was visible across much of Europe, with hundreds taking to social media to share footage and imagery.
Steven Hall told the BBC that as he was taking out his bins in Suffolk he saw a “huge catherine wheel which appeared to have its own atmosphere around it”.
He added: “It did pass my mind, is this an unexplained, unidentified flying object.”
Dave, from Bristol, said he initially thought the blue spiral was “a plane with its headlight on”.
He said: “It suddenly went blurry and I thought ‘Oh, it’s gone into cloud,’ but then realised there weren’t any clouds.
“I watched this fuzzy light for what felt like about a minute when all of a sudden it started shooting out these spiral arms and spinning.
“I realised straight away it was SpaceX because I’ve seen it so much on YouTube, but I can totally see how others would have been weirded out by it – it really did look alien.”
