The sky in the UK has a pink hue that appears to be out of this world, resembling the arrival of Zuul from Ghostbusters.

An unexplained occurrence resulted in a portion of the UK being illuminated by a peculiar pink sky, which has now been clarified by an expert.

Thanet, in the east of Kent, was an astonishing pink yesterday (October 19) in images that looked like something out of a video game. Unsurprisingly, many were shocked, scared and confused by what they saw.

The images were taken between 5am and 6am and captured the sky in a deep pink colour, KentLive reports. One picture was taken outside Bethany’s Sandwich Bar and Café in Westgate, and shows the sky dominated by astonishing pinkishness.

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As ever, people were quick to get online and share their thoughts. One person wrote: “Thought it was the end of the world, was looking for the four horsemen.” Another said: “It’s just Zuul from Ghostbusters.”

But no matter how much some want this to be a real-life sci-fi, there is actually a perfectly reasonable explanation for the remarkable light show. And that explanation centres around one particular business in the area.

That business is Birchington-based Thanet Earth, a large industrial agriculture and plant factory. It is the largest greenhouse complex in the UK, covering an impressive area of 90 acres, or 220 hectares. Its location on the Isle of Thanet makes a lot of sense too, given that the southeast of the UK gets more sunlight than anywhere else in the country.

Explaining why the sky turned pink, a Thanet Earth spokesperson explained: “As a responsible local business, we constantly monitor the way our business affects the community around us and during certain weather conditions there will inevitably be some light that reflects, particularly when there is low dense cloud cover over the Thanet area.

“We mitigate this light reflection as much as possible by deploying blinds in our glasshouses once the lights are switched on. We continually assess our operations and their impact on the community and the pink LED lights we use here at Thanet Earth have much lower emission levels compared to other types of growing lights.”

A mass reflection by low cloud coverage led to the weird effect, which Thanet Earth described as: “a spooky, glowing landmark.”

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