Stargazers in New Zealand were left astounded and puzzled by bizarre, spiral light formations in the sky on Sunday night. Social media is abuzz with photographs showing the rare phenomenon and theories about the spiral blue formation in the night sky. Theories proposed by users on social media groups included “wormhole”, “rocket exhaust fumes”, and “rocket spinning out of control”.
Alasdair Burns, a stargazing guide on Stewart Island, was left awestruck after watching the huge, blue spiral of light. A friend sent him a message asking him to go outside and look at the sky. “It looked like an enormous spiral galaxy, just hanging there in the sky, and slowly just drifting across,” Burns was quoted as saying by The Guardian. “Quite an eerie feeling,” he added.
Burns captured a few images of the rare phenomenon on his phone. “We quickly banged on the doors of all our neighbours to get them out as well. And so there were about five of us, all out on our shared veranda looking up and just kind of, well, freaking out just a little bit,” he told The Guardian.
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PremiumA user, Bong Sze How, shared two photographs of the blue, spiral light on Milky Way Chasers New Zealand, a Facebook group. “Just happening around 7.28 pm. Saw it in Motueka area. It is will moving. Did anyone know what is that?” said the user.
A user commented, “Looks like a rocket spinning out of control.” Another user wrote, “I was sitting in my chair last night by the patio door. Looking over my neighbors roof to the SE, I see this glow right over a power transformer. I thought it was on fire.”
However, Richard Easther, a physics professor at the University of Auckland, was quoted as saying by Stuff that the spiral was really the illuminated plume of a rocket. Explaining the phenomenon, he said, “They are ‘clouds’ created by the exhaust plumes of the rocket which would have been illuminated by the sun. It’s similar to the effect you sometimes see at sunset when the setting sun lights up the underside of high clouds.”
Easther also put forth the possibility that the rocket might be SpaceX’s Global Star Mission, which was launched earlier on Sunday and passed over New Zealand.
Meteorologist Lacey Swope also mentioned on Facebook that it might be a SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral.
