A mysterious glowing spiral illuminated the sky last night and was spotted across the UK.
The spinning orb was seen for a number of minutes in parts of England and Wales as onlookers wondered whether it was a ‘portal’ or contactfrom ‘aliens’.
But despite the excitement from extraterrestrial enthusiasts – it is believed to have been caused by something else much closer to home.
The suspected cause of the phenomenon is actually thought to be rocket fuel from an Elon Musk space launch.
The cloud-like shape is believed to be a result of leftover fuel released by a SpaceX rocket in the U.S.
A Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s space company took off at 17:50 UK time in Florida on a secret US government mission.
The rocket completed its NROL-69 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and then turned around to head back to Earth.
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It was at this point the Falcon 9 would have released any leftover fuel.
This fuel freezes instantly in a spiral pattern due to the high altitude and the rocket’s movements.
When light is reflected off of this frozen spiral, it becomes the glowing orb visible on Earth.
Despite this, Britons last night were left stunned by the beautiful spiral.
Thousands posted social media asking whether what they had just seen was a supernatural phenomenon.
One space enthusiast Damian Peach post on Facebook: ‘While imaging Jupiter and Mars tonight I completely by chance happened to notice a huge ghostly swirl slowly drifting across the northern sky.
‘I did wonder if it was an alien species attempting to open a portal into our dimension – but it was in fact a Space X rocket fuel dump.’
Another commented that it ‘looked like a portal opening’ up while another thought they had just witnessed an ‘alien spacecraft’.
This is not the first time this ‘alien portal’ has been witnessed.
Back in 2023 a similar spiral was spotted over parts of the USA, hours after a SpaceX Rocket had taken off from California.
UFO theories were rampant at the end of 2024 when a series of unidentified objects were seen over the US.
The mystery drones, which were compared to alien spacecraft, were spotted on a daily basis for weeks hovering over the country’s northeast.
Experts told Metro the drone which were compared to UFOs, may have been from hobbyists but could have been being used as surveillance from malicious foreign actors.
These unidentified aircraft appeared to be able to avoid detection by helicopter and radio, and ‘operate[d] in a coordinated manner’.
In November last year, a fleet of unidentified drones flew over three airbases in the UK, including one due to store nuclear warheads.
It was not clear whether those drones were operated by a hostile actor.
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