Woman thought she saw the northern lights but it was something rather mundane

When Dee Harrison looked up into the early morning sky on Wednesday she was left bewildered by what she thought were the northern lights.

The 56-year-old captured them over Bramford, Suffolk, at around 5.15am and was determined to show the rest of the county what she had witnessed.

After she posted the display on the Facebook group Stunning Suffolk, to her disappointment people started to inform her that the warm glow was from… a tomato factory.

Before the revelation, Dee was very excited and posted three photos to the public page and captioned it ‘guess it is the aurora, not seen one before’.

But unfortunately for her, the glow was from Suffolk Sweet Tomatoes’ LED light units, which are used to encourage the growth of the vegetables.

Dee recalled: ‘It was about 5.15am and I was driving along… and could see to my left the sky was red.

‘At first, I thought something was on fire but when I parked up I could see this deep pink sky – it looked brighter through my phone camera, so I thought it was an aurora.

‘But it wasn’t, unfortunately, so I was a bit disappointed because I thought I was up early seeing this aurora and I had it all to myself.

‘I have driven that way for over two years and this was the first time I had seen it. It’s funny how I haven’t noticed it before.’

Social media user Adam Cotterell, 34, quickly ruined Dee’s dream and said that these were not the northern lights.

He replied to her post and informed her: ‘They are lights from a local tomato factory.

‘It has full spectrum lights that shine red into the sky when there is low lying fog or cloud.

‘I live up the road and have seen it a few times.’

He also informed the BBC: ‘Since the tomato factory has been there, you have always been able to see a red and pink hue in the sky when there is mist or fog in the air.

‘It is most apparent in the winter months on a cold, foggy night, not so much through the summer months because the summer air is dry.

‘But as we are now coming into winter, you will see it more with the damp evening air and low-lying mists.

‘It’s still an incredible sight to see but it won’t beat the true aurora like the one back in May. That was an incredible night.’

Poor Dee, who is from Ipswich, was left upset by the revelation and posted ‘apparently not an aurora, sorry’ accompanied by a ‘sad’ emoji with a tear.

To confirm it all, data from AuroraWatch UK showed there was ‘no significant’ northern lights activity in the area on Wednesday morning.

Better luck next time Dee.

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