This isn’t the start of an alien invasion. At least not in Thanet, anyway.
An apocalyptic, eerie pink sky gave the Kentish seaside community quite a fright as they woke up yesterday morning, opening their curtains expecting Storm Babet but finding something much more strange.
For an hour between 5am and 6am the entire town was overcast by the ominous magenta clouds.
Millennials thought it was Zuul from Ghostbusters making his arrival. Gen Z thought Stranger Things was coming to life.
Others reckoned it was just straight-up end of the world vibes.
However, the striking phenomenon had a much more Earthly, if slightly less fun, explanation.
Tomatoes.
Just outside the town lies the ‘plant factory’ Thanet Earth, an enormous greenhouse complex that grows hundreds of millions of tomatoes each year alongside 30 million cucumbers and 24 million peppers.
All those tasty vegetables need more light to grow than a drizzly English autumn can provide, and so the team switches on the lights early in the morning for a brightness boost – think of a massive Lumie alarm clock.
And while the company says it does its best to keep the light trapped inside using blinds, when low cloud rolls into town, the light that does escape can’t help but create an eerie glow.
‘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,’ said a Thanet Earth spokesperson.
‘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.’
However, some residents didn’t see the funny side of the spooky sight.
‘Would that be the massive light pollutant Thanet Earth?’ said one user on X, formerly Twitter. ‘Pink skies at night thanks to them, an inept planning dept who allowed it… No dark skies here!’
Another wrote: ‘When were Thanet Earth given permission to turn our skies pink? Horrific light pollution.’
Most, however, seemed to enjoy the curious sight caused by a few million tomatoes sunbathing in the early morning glow.
And who knows, one day they may get their revenge for the early morning fright by slicing up one of those tomatoes for dinner.
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