A Brickhill resident got a shock last night (Monday) when they looked to the sky and clearly saw what they described as “a neat spiral of glowing clouds”.
Amy Adair was at her in-laws’ house on Bourneside when she and her daughters, aged five and eight, went outside to see if they could spot the moon.
“At first, I thought the moon must be behind some clouds, because when we looked up we just saw a swirly shape,” said Amy.
“We soon realised it wasn’t the moon as the bit in the middle was really bright and the swirl around it was a greeny-blue colour.”
By now, Amy’s husband and in-laws had come outside to see the spooky phenomenon and Amy had grabbed her phone to take a photo.
“At first I took a normal photo, but then I remembered that when people were recently trying to take photos of the Northern Lights, they’d put their camera on night mode. Suddenly I got this amazing image.”
Unsure whether they were witnessing an eclipse, a planet, a galaxy or – according to Amy’s youngest daughter, aliens – Amy’s mother-in-law checked on a star tracking app, but nothing came up.
Initially, Amy and her family thought it might be the Milky Way, but after checking online, they discovered that the cloud-like vision was not a natural phenomenon, but rather the result of the launch of a SpaceX mission in Florida.
According to the BBC, “The Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s space company lifted off around 13:50 local time in Florida (17:50 GMT) on a classified US government mission.
“The Falcon 9 is a reusable rocket. After launching into space, it releases what is called its payload – whatever it is carrying, such as a satellite, to complete its mission, which continues its journey into space.
“The rocket then turns back around towards Earth. As it does, it ejects any leftover fuel, which freezes instantly due to the altitude in a spiral pattern caused by the rocket’s movement.
“Light is then reflected off the frozen fuel, making it visible on Earth.”
“Regardless of what it was, I’m happy that my daughters got to see something so unique,” said Amy.
“It was probably only visible for seven or eight minutes, so it was a complete coincidence that we happened to be looking up at the sky at that precise time.
“My daughters have gone into school this morning very excited to tell their teachers all about what they saw.”
Amy’s dad, Patrick Ayres, told the Bedford Independent, “Checking the internet, it seems to be that this once-in-a-lifetime display may be less likely to foreshadow tripods striding through Mowsbury Park [one for our younger readers – Ed] than to result from frozen fuel dumped into the atmosphere by the latest SpaceX mission.
“Still, I kept my door bolted last night.”
