An eerie pink glow in the sky gets an Australian town excited. But then ...

An eerie pink glow spread over the night sky this week in a sleepy town in Australia's Victoria and residents were soon searching for answers.

All kinds of possibilities were nervously discussed by the people of Mildura. Some took pictures and posted to social media asking friends in other areas whether they knew what it was.

Caused by aliens? A situation out of the TV series Stranger Things? An asteroid hitting? A strange new comet? A radiation beam to neutralise the effects of Covid?

Some of the items in the list of possibilities discussed were in the realm of science fiction.

But soon after a search, the reason turned out to be anticlimactic. The powerful lights were coming from a medicinal marijuana factory in the neighbourhood.

Such factories use purple or pink hydroponic lights in their cannabis farms. News reports quoted the Cann Pharmaceutical company in the locality as confirming that they left the blinds in their harvesting shed open that night. The powerful lights reflected off the clouds to produce the otherworldly glow.