The sky in Manchester was ‘lit up’ on Wednesday evening after a strange object flew overhead.
James Garside, a construction manager from Reddish, spotted the ‘fireball‘ passing overhead at around 3.40am, after returning from a late shfit at work.
He quickly grabbed his phone and captured clear footage of the mysterious object, despite the sky being slightly misty, te object is clearly visible in the night sky.
It has a glowing red ball at the front, with a distinctive tail trailing behind it as it hurtles overhead.
James, 27, told the Manchester Evening News that it had been so bright it had “light up the sky” as it went across.
“I just got out of the car and looked up,” he said. “There was this red thing going across so I got my phone out quickly and was able to capture it. It was long enough in the sky so you could get a video.”
He added: “It was a bit misty, you could see the moon through the mist, but this just lit up the sky going across.”
James was left dumfounded by the mysterious object.
“It was just unexpected,” he said. “It was like a fireball and it was going across the sky, it was west to east. It lasted a good 20 seconds and then it fades out.”
And it seems that James might not be the only person to have glimpsed the strange object in the early hours of this morning.
The International Meteor Organisation (IMO) reported that it has received 300 reports of sightings of a fireball over areas ranging from Greater Manchester to Germany and Denmark.
Information on the IMO’s website says that these sightings were the result of a “re-entry of a satellite or rocket” into the Earth’s atmosphere and “not a natural fireball”.
The UK Space Agency said that the body was a Falcon 9 rocket body launched in 2025. The Falcon 9 is a partially reusable rocket designed by SpaceX.