The flying object has been identified
16:43, 30 Oct 2025Updated 16:49, 30 Oct 2025
A mysterious bright object spotted in skies over the UK was likely the debris from an Elon Musk rocket, experts have said.
Residents in several locations across the South West saw the oddly shaped light overnight, describing it as “bright and silent”.
The strange burst of light seen on Wednesday night surprised many people who questioned its origin.
Michał Pleśniak, speaking from Thornbury near Bristol, said: “I was walking back with the dogs when I saw something bright in the sky to the northwest from Wales. It was so bright and silent.
“I called my wife to bring the kids outside so they could also see it. They were so happy to witness that rare moment.”
Another person, in Plymouth, said: “It was moving across the sky and had a almost flat top with what seemed to be a light of some sort trailing underneath.
“It was also quite high up.”
A second Plymouth resident said: “At 18:27 I saw a bright blue-white halo with a glowing core moving steadily across the night sky. The sight matches a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage from the Starlink 10-37 mission launched from Cape Canaveral earlier this evening at 16:35 UTC.”
A mysterious light seen in the skies over the South West(Image: Submitted)
Experts and amateur stargazers deduced the distracting light was the ejection of fuel from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which launched from Florida on Wednesday.
SpaceX, owned by tech billionaire and the world’s richest man Mr Musk, operate a series of low-earth orbit satellites for Starlink, an international satellite telecommunications service.
The bright light was said to be caused by the process of excess rocket fuel being ejected and freezing, then reflecting light back to earth.
The path and the trajectory of the rocket matches the reported sightings, experts said. Space commentator Leo Enright said ejecting fuel from rockets was a normal occurrence.
“If they keep the fuel in the rocket there is a danger that it will explode and shower debris, so it is a standard practice now for space companies to vent fuel,” Mr Enright told the PA news agency.
“It does look spectacular if it happens at a particular time of the day, when the viewer down on earth is in darkness or near darkness and the rocket stage is in light.”
He said the view is often “more spectacular” than was seen on Wednesday night because the ejected fuel can be seen rotating. “When the stage is rotating you get a truly extraordinary spiral effect that makes it look like a galaxy.”