{"id":619956,"date":"2025-12-08T11:39:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/619956\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:39:14","slug":"mysterious-streak-of-light-over-devon-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/619956\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious streak of light over Devon skies"},"content":{"rendered":"

One onlooker ‘couldn’t believe’ what she saw<\/p>\n

James Connolly, SWNS<\/strong> and Maxine Denton<\/strong> Senior Reporter<\/p>\n

10:41, 08 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

\"TheThe mysterious streak of light was captured above Devon (Image: Ellie Jarvis \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

A mysterious streak of light spotted in the sky above Britain was most likely caused by a Chinese rocket, experts say.<\/p>\n

Early risers in various locations, including Devon, were convinced they were seeing something otherworldly when the glow appeared.<\/p>\n

Snapped by one witness in the early hours of Wednesday (December 3), pictures show the surreal pillar of light hanging still in the sky.<\/p>\n

Experts now confirm the display was most likely caused by a Chinese rocket’s exhaust plume catching the rising sun during a test run.<\/p>\n

Ellie Jarvis, 45, from Clovelly in north Devon<\/a>, was up unusually early when she captured the sight.<\/p>\n

\"ExpertsExperts say the blazing light was most likely caused by a Chinese rocket(Image: Ellie Jarvis \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

She said: “I couldn’t believe it. We’ve seen auroras before, but I didn’t know what this was.<\/p>\n

”It was so straight and high up in the sky. I wondered if it was a natural trick of the light.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC<\/a>, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said: “It was definitely the Chinese Zhuque-3 rocket making its first test flight.”<\/p>\n

In the photos, the sky looks black except for the blazing light, which seems to hover as dawn creeps in.<\/p>\n

Ellie, who has lived in the village for 20 years, added: “I was so surprised when I found out what it actually was.<\/p>\n

“I’d already shared it in our family group chat and we had all kinds of theories.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One onlooker ‘couldn’t believe’ what she saw James Connolly, SWNS and Maxine Denton Senior Reporter 10:41, 08 Dec…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[90889,70,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-619956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-north-devon","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115683758986969000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}