We now know what those bizarre light beams visible in the UK were

In the early hours of December 3, people going for runs or opening their bedroom curtains all saw something a little strange.

A towering beam of light.

Seen mainly along the coasts of England and Scotland, readers told Metro the bright trail was visible between 5-5.30am.

The phenomenon was seen as far south as Colchester, Essex, with Vida Page seeing it from her window.

She told Metro: ‘It was so bright initially and perfectly straight, by the time I ran upstairs to grab my phone, it had already started fading in strength and height.’

‘It also seemed to move from left to right as the sun would.’

A weather forecaster previously suggested to Metro that what people saw was a light pillar, when tiny ice crystals reflect light from a ground source.

But this was no icy illusion – the UK Space Agency told Metro it likely was a Chinese rocket.

The agency added: ‘While we can’t be 100% certain, the timing and trajectory make this a reasonable explanation.’

The 216-feet-tall Zhuque-3 Y1 satellite was launched from a site near the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 4.02am UK time.

Beijing said that while the first, reusable part of the rocket burst into flames, the second stage of the ship entered orbit.

The UK’s National Space Operations Centre shared with Metro the estimated flight path of Zhuque-3, showing it soaring over the UK.

The space agency stressed that the rocket posed no threat to the UK.

Astrophotographer Tim Burgess told Metro that while some social media users were saying it was aliens – or Mr Bean – a rocket was his first guess.

He captured the glowing streak with his camera placed outside his home in Kintbury, Berkshire.

‘We quite often get some second-stage passes from SpaceX launches,’ he said, referring to Elon Musk’s rocket company.

‘From seeing the footage, it was clear it couldn’t be a pillar as it moved across the sky.’

Burgess explained that as rockets prepare for re-entry, they vent fuel to manoeuvre themselves, forming linear propellant-dump trails.

So, as Zhuque-3 Y1 flew west to east over the UK, the trail it left behind appeared to grow stronger.

Physicist Les Cowley, who specialises in how light travels through the atmosphere, also doubts the line was a light pillar.

Light pillars happen on cold nights when low-angle light cuts a line through the millions of ice crystals that float only 100ft or so above.

What people saw that morning was too bright, narrow and high to be an ice pillar.

Cowley told Metro: ‘More diffuse-looking pillars often appear over bright ground lights and are produced by tiny horizontal ice crystals in sub-zero temperature air reflecting the ground light back to the ground.

‘We did not have these Arctic temperatures. If they occurred in the UK, I would expect to see just a fragment high up where the air can be cold enough to produce the crystals.’

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