Have You Seen This? The skies turned pink over an English city (and it wasn't the northern lights)

BIRMINGHAM, England — The residents of Birmingham, England, got an unexpected burst of color last week — pink skies.

No, it wasn't the northern lights, which made surprise appearances late last year in Utah. Rather, it was the product of special lighting used to keep the grass healthy on the Birmingham City Football Club pitch and foggy, overcast weather.

"On the night of Jan. 9, a mysterious pink light covered the skies of the West Midlands," the English Football League said in a post on its U.S. Instagram account. "Many people attributed it to a strange weather phenomenon, but the real culprit was Birmingham City FC."

Turns out the groundsman who takes care of the soccer field, used even in the winter, shines special lighting on the pitch to help maintain the health of the grass in cold weather. The pink lighting reflected off the snow and fog that day last week, turning the entire sky above the English city pink. "So without knowing it and simply doing his job, Birmingham's groundsman caused one of the most extraordinary atmospheric phenomena of early 2026," reads the English Football League post.

The flash of pink prompted surprise in the city. One woman posted a video to YouTube of the sky, expressing her astonishment as she filmed.

"I've never seen a sky like this before," she said. "The sky is really, really purple guys. ... That's the sky, guys. I've never really seen anything like this before."

While she labeled the color purple, others debated the actual shade on a post on the incident on the Facebook page of the Birmingham City Football Club. One poster called the color claret, prompting backlash from another who thought it was pink. Another labeled the hue magenta, and yet another called it a combination of claret and blue.

Whatever the shade, it made for an unexpected surprise and prompted many to post photos and videos of what they saw. "Beautiful, hopefully a sign of good things to come," wrote one woman in response to the English Football League Post.