Don't worry, it wasn't aliens. There is a very real explanation for a 'triangle of light' that was seen over the UK last night.
People were amazed as they saw the phenomenon appear to hover overhead before it moved north.
But the conical object was part of the Atlas V rocket re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, reports HullLive.
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Dave Throup, Environment Agency manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire, saw the strange lights in the northern sky at around 10pm last night (Monday, September 27).
He said: "Thought it was a helicopter search light. Apparently it was Atlas V rocket."
One witness told our sister title Hull Live: "It was a huge white triangle in the sky no noise at all, no planes showing up on the flight tracker, has to be something in orbit but was something I've never seen before, and to say how high it was the projected light must have been miles wide."
Another witness said: "It was a triangle of light moving across the sky, it was so unnatural."
It is thought the object is related to the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket which launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, in California, shortly after 7pm UK time.
The rocket successfully carried Landsat 9 — a NASA satellite meant to help monitor Earth’s land and coastal regions — into orbit before separating and moving to a lower orbit to deploy rideshare Cubesats.
It is understood the strange shape seen in the sky was caused by the rocket's "de-orbit burn", a firing of its engines around three hours after launch to steer the rocket back into the Earth's atmosphere for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean.
According to NASA, Landsat 9 can take more than 700 images of Earth per day.
The launch had previously been delayed because of supply chain troubles that limited access to liquid nitrogen.
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