Glowing spiral spotted in sky above Britain

Telegraph

25-03-2025

A mysterious swirl which appeared in the night sky over Britain was made by a SpaceX rocket, experts have concluded.
On Monday night, social media was abuzz with stargazers who spotted the strange spiral moving slowly across the sky from north to south at around 8pm for 30 minutes.
Ben Thomson of Hampshire, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that it was 'too slow for a satellite but appeared to be at a high altitude'.
He added: 'It was very bright at its central point and created a swirl effect which was also lit up as it went.'
Sue Billcliffe, who took one of the clearest images of the phenomenon, reported seeing 'strange shapes in the sky' above Ryhill in West Yorkshire.
The French meteorological office posted an extraordinary video of the swirl speeded up as it made its way across the sky.
Experts said the phenomenon was created by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 5.48pm UK time.
The frozen exhaust was illuminated by the Sun as they spun across the sky, creating the glowing blue spiral.
A spokesman for the Met Office said: 'We've received many reports of an illuminated swirl in the sky this evening.
' This is likely to be caused by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched earlier today. The rocket's frozen exhaust plume appears to be spinning in the atmosphere and reflecting the sunlight, causing it to appear as a spiral in the sky.'
SpaceX said that the launch was carried out on behalf of the US government's National Reconnaissance Office mission and that its orbit was classified.
The Falcon 9 is a reusable rocket and came back to Earth around eight minutes after lift off, leaving behind a trail of exhaust in the upper atmosphere.
Steven Hall, who spotted the spiral from his home in Suffolk told the BBC it looked like 'a huge Catherine wheel which appeared to have its own atmosphere around it'.
He added: 'It did pass my mind: is this an unexplained unidentified flying object?'
UFO hotlines received dozens of calls, but Marco Langbroek, a satellite expert and lecturer at TU Delft, said that it was likely to be a fuel dump by the Falcon 9 rocket.
The Falcon 9 rockets are designed to eject any leftover fuel before they come back to Earth. The fuel freezes instantly due to the altitude, creating a spiral pattern caused by the rocket's movement.
'The strange spiral cloud visible in the sky this Monday evening was a fuel dump from the Falcon 9 rocket that launched an American spy satellite today,' Dr Langbroek said on X.
In February, another Falcon 9 rocket launch caused fireballs in the sky over Europe.