In you live in California, Arizona or Mexico chances are you saw a bright, colorful cloud in the night sky on Monday.
Fox 10 Phoenix reported that multiple viewers sent in photos and videos of the strange phenomenon glistening high above the ground.
The ‘odd cloud’ was spotted by people in Phoenix and Yuma, Arizona, as well as in Menifee, Coachella and San Diego, California.
A colorful cloud was glistening in the sky in parts of California, Mexico and Arizona on Monday night
Residents captured the stunning cloud and shared pictures and video on social media
Some people thought the psychedelic cloud was exhaust from a rocket or missile or a possible alien
Residents in the northern part of the Mexican state Baja California also reported seeing the cloud.
The psychedelic mass sparked tons of online theories from rocket or missile exhaust to aliens to some type of weird cloud writing.
However, the answer is much more simple – and rather scientific.
According to Arizona Family News, the odd-looking mass was a noctilucent cloud, sometimes called a ‘night shining’ cloud.
Noctilucent clouds are described as a luminous thin, usually colored, clouds seen at twilight. They are composed of very small water ice crystals that form on minute particles of dust, ‘possibly a cosmic origin from micrometeors’, according to the Wold Meterological Organization.
The ‘night shining’ clouds are only visible during the summer when temperatures in the mesosphere are coldest.
One person captured the brightly colored cloud high above the rooftop of their home
The colorful mass left many people in the are stunned, however it is a noctilucent cloud or ‘night shining cloud’
Noctilucent clouds are described as a luminous thin, usually colored, clouds seen at twilight
They are composed of very small water ice crystals that form on minute particles of dust
The ‘night shining’ clouds are only visible during the summer when temperatures in the mesosphere are coldest