“It’s Batman’s new call sign”
Residents across Greater Manchester and beyond were left completely baffled when a ‘spinning’ orb illuminated the night sky on Monday evening (March 24).
People questioned whether the spiral anomaly was a UFO and said their ‘kids were freaked out’ after spotting it out of their windows and overhead.
However, fears of an alien invasion were quickly squashed after the bizarre incident was thought to have been from the launch of a Space X rocket.
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Pictures and videos shared online showed the bright light which was seen to be ‘spinning’ across the night sky. The beam was noticed by people who took to X and Facebook to question what it was.
Social media was awash with posts about the strange circular light which shone across Greater Manchester, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire and other parts of the UK, including in the south.
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Reacting to the phenomenon on social media, one person said: “Pretty certain I just saw a UFO. Did anyone else see it?” as another said: “Has anyone else just seen this over Radcliffe in the sky because me and the kids are freaked out.”
“Anyone seen the strange moving objects in the sky? 8pm. One bright thing with white misty rings round it. Moving slow for ages then completely disappeared,” penned another.
Another person quipped: “It’s Batman’s new call sign” with a fourth person joking: “It’s a worm hole to Alpha Centauri. Opens to allow aliens safe passage to earth.”
Once pictures and videos were shared on social media, many people were left baffled as one person questioned: “Did anyone else just see this swirling thing in the sky? It was spinning round and then went off into the distance.”
Followed by another post which read: “”What have we just seen??? It was moving and then faded away after about 2 mins and there were other small what looked like stars moving around it too.”
It seemed the orb linked with the taking off of the Space X US spy satellite on Monday (March 24) and is the most plausible cause.
A Falcon 9 rocket rose off a pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station shortly after 1.45pm on the NROL-69 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
A similar phenomenon was witnessed in 2023 when a similar spiral was spotted over parts of the USA, which had been caused by excess fuel being released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California hours earlier.
The spiral anomaly occurred when the rocket vented excess fuel which then froze and reflected the sunlight.