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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Dean Murray & Rachel Hains

Like Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Photographer captures 'otherworldly' lights in the sky

Photographer John Trueman has captured otherworldly lights illuminating the clouds over the Moray Firth.. The spectacle, which resembled a scene from 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, occurred near Kinloss Barracks, a former Royal Air Force station on Monday (April 25).

John believes local satellite company Orbex was responsible for the show, which he shot from a public beach. He says: “This is Orbex, based in Forres, testing their spaceport equipment at Kinloss barracks. When it was first started, I thought it was aliens.

“These photos were taken by me from Findhorn beach of the lights seen above the local sky from between 10pm to 10:30pm.

“Floodlights are filling the sky and creating some very nice and dramatic scenes that have caused social media to be very active in the last week.”

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Mirrorpix)

According to their website, Orbex is a UK-based private, low-cost orbital launch services company founded in 2015. They say they serve "the needs of the small satellite industry”, and have developed one of the most advanced, low carbon, high performance micro-launch vehicles in the world.

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