A mysterious glitch that led to street lights slowly flashing off and on through an entire night has now been solved.
The fault affected thousands of street lights in several parts of the country, including in South Gloucestershire, intermittently plunging people into darkness.
Several people who spotted the spooky flashing in the early hours of Wednesday (January 13) took to social media to share their theories.
One person commenting on the Kingswood Community Facebook page simply wrote: "Aliens."
However, the real reason for the glitch has now been shared with Wales Live.
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Bridgend in Wales also experienced the same issue as in South Gloucestershire, as did other parts of the country including Salford in Greater Manchester.
Bristol City Council said the problem had not been reported within its jurisdiction.
South Gloucestershire Council said it was investigating, and that it was "in contact with the company that manages the infrastructure to resolve the issue".
However, Bridgend County Borough Council now appears to identified the problem.
A council spokesperson told Wales Live that the incident was part of a "UK-wide problem" between January 13 and 14.
The statement explained: ""It is believed to have only affected street lights which use global positioning technology to calculate what time the sun rises and sets.
"While these lights are in use within communities located all across the county borough, the rest of the area’s 20,000 streetlights, which are capable of detecting low light levels, continued to work as normal.
'Problem resolved'
"The problem was resolved after the council's street lighting team contacted the manufacturers of the affected street lights, who were able to reset them."
Bradley Stoke resident Dave Oliva Arbues was one of several people to contact Bristol Live about the issue, in the early hours of Wednesday morning (January 13).
He filmed the "strange happenings", adding: "I saw the lights flickering the whole night, without any reason.
"It was like they were trying to switch off but there was a fault."
The initial story prompted a large response from people also saying they had seen the same curious sight.
One reader, Martyn, told us: "The street light problem will be a GPS software issue so the manufacturer of that would have to fix.
"It is happening during daylight too and affects a certain type of lighting with a GPS controller on top.
"Other newer models are not affected."
