Martians, Santa, the Northern Lights? Twickenham residents were left guessing what the cause of an other-worldly glowing orange light was last night.
Social media users flocked online to post pictures of the eerie glow, with some wondering if there had been a fire and others suggesting it could be the Northern Lights.
The mystery was soon solved and the glow was revealed to be coming from Twickenham Stadium.
Many made light of the situation, with some suggesting it was Santa or a Christmas miracle.
One Facebook user commented: “That’s probably my Christmas lights.”
Others made jokes about aliens rescuing us or signalling the End of Times.
Some residents believed the glow was coming from the Northern Lights.
TimeOut said Aurora Borealis watchers should be on the lookout last night as they reported the lights could be viewable as far south as the Midlands over a 48-hour period.
They said the aurora appears above the northern horizon as a faint, colourful glow – much like the glowing orange light in Twickenham.
But those living nearby the stadium posted pictures of orange light coming from the grounds.
A similar glow appeared above the stadium about three years ago and it was found to be coming from special lights encouraging the grass to grow.
It is thought the same thing happened last night.
One twitter user said: “utterly absurd levels of light pollution from the stadium, do they have any consideration for their neighbours?”
While others were sad to have missed it.
Another twitter user said: “Oh!!! I wish I’d seen this.”
Other light-hearted reactions included pictures of the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings and GIFS of the little girl from The Poltergeist saying: ‘They’re here.’
The Jaffa sky, as one tweeter dubbed it, was certainly a topic of much discussion and, even though it probably came from the stadium, there’s nothing stopping us from dreaming it was something a little more magical.
Featured image credit: Tim Sierwald
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We had this glow outside our flats for 2 nights running in Hampton wick and it looked more cloud like and it had movement. Definitely not coming from the rugby ground
Northern Lights have varying colours depending on the level of aurora activity. Green aurora was seen in Ealing/Acton.
Why did they think its the Northern lLights? They were orange not green or purple?
I don’t believe it’s Twickenham stadium. The light would span across such a large area and wouldn’t have movement. A friend is in Ealing and she saw yellow/Amber sky which then turned green. She saw green in Ealing while I saw yellow/Amber in Whitton/Twickenham. The colour faded and then brightened just as northern lights do. The Aurora app shows there could be activity across the UK.
I have images of a flickering glow in Acton /ealing. We have no stadium here. It moved like the northern lights and was not visible elsewhere. A stadium lighting could never create that type lf glow in the sky. It also does not explain why a green Amber glow was seen in Ealing? These are the northern lights. May not have been a full on Arora borealis but it is the northern lights.
It was the northern lights. Similar phenomena was spotted in Ealing!!