Yorkshire folk on the glowing spiral in the sky caused by Elon Musk's space rocket dumping fuel more than 50 miles above Earth

The growing swirl visible for several minutes across British skies was initially confused with aviation and even extraterrestrial activity by some, but it has now been attributed to a SpaceX launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida more than 4,000 miles away.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX held a launch for the US government shortly before 1.50pm local time (5.50pm GMT) and it is understood the Falcon 9 rocket’s frozen exhaust plume caused the display.

The Met Office said on social media site X: “The rocket’s frozen exhaust plume appears to be spinning in the atmosphere and reflecting the sunlight, causing it to appear as a spiral in the sky.”

The twisting celestial display was visible across much of Europe, with hundreds taking to social media to share footage and imagery.

One person who saw the spiral from near Hornsea, on Yorkshire’s coast, said it reminded her of the Bat-signal projected onto the night sky to summon Batman for help.

"It was pretty wierd and pretty impressive”, she said. “We’re getting used to it – this is the second we’ve seen from Space X.”

Another watched the swirl evolve from initially looking like a “giant car with its headlights burning” into a glowing circle with a backwards S in the middle.

"It then seemed to break into two. One bit went out, another appeared. Then the spiral started. Imagine all that crap it is putting into the atmosphere – tonnes of unburnt fuel – what damage is that going to do?”

Explaining the phenomenon, Lord Dover, a senior technical officer at the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory, said the spiral was visible for around 10 minutes from 7.52pm – moving across the sky before dipping over the horizon.

“(The SpaceX) rocket… dumped fuel in the upper atmosphere to shed weight before returning to Earth,” he explained.

“This fuel formed an expanding, swirling cloud that developed into a giant spiral shape as it travelled over the Atlantic.

“These sightings are becoming common in some parts of the world, but it’s still unusual for rocket launches to be visible like this from the UK.”