An Astronomer managed to catch a rare sight on camera that left him and his co-worker wondering whether they had seen aliens or a black hole.
Alasdair Burns, who runs a business called ‘Twinkle Dark Sky Tours,’ spotted the incredible view on an island off New Zealand, and has since gone viral.
He was on Stewart Island - located 30 kilometres south of the South Island - when he managed to capture an image of spiraling lights in the night sky.
Speaking to New Zealand's TV3 he explained: "At first sight, it almost looked like a spiral galaxy just hanging there in the night sky."
Jen Ross, another employee of Twinkle Dark Sky Tours, added: "It was like nothing we've ever seen before. Just incredible.
"Standing there looking up at it I thought it was either aliens or a black hole that was opening up that we were all going to get sucked up into."
While many online were suggesting that it could have been something extraterrestrial, a Professor from Auckland University explained that there is a reason for these spiral lights.
Richard Easther told TV3: "As far as we can tell it's created by the sun catching the exhaust fumes from the second stage of a SpaceX rocket that reignited about an hour after it had been placed in orbit at Cape Canaveral.
"It's amazing, I wish I'd seen it."
He went on to explain: "If that exhaust does come out in a direction other than straight out behind, it can cause the staged part of the rocket to spin and it acts sort of like a rocket sprinkler and that exhaust goes out in a spiral.”
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