Solved: The riddle of mysterious lights over Cambridgeshire dubbed ‘close encounters of the Fen kind’
Residents who have witnessed a strange glow in the Cambridgeshire skies are asking whether they have seen first contact from another planet or a local version of the northern lights – but the Cambridge Independent has confirmed that the real answer rests with cucumbers.
The beam was spotted for miles around twice in a week over villages from Stow Cum Quy to Bottisham, and Burwell to Wicken.
People took to social media to ask what they had seen. One poster joked: “Anyone know what the incredible beam of light going up into the night sky from the Upware / Waterbeach area is? Filming Close Encounters of the Fen Kind?”
Others added: “They’ve landed” and “The truth is out there”.
One Bottisham resident said they could “see it hovering over Longmeadow from the back of my garden”.
Some people also wondered if it could be “Cambridge's local northern lights” – a kind of fenrora borealis.
However, the mystery has finally been solved and there’s a down to earth explanation for the phenomenon. The source of the light turned out to be a failure of blackout blinds at The Green House Growers’ cucumber and tomato farm in Chittering, near Ely.
The farm’s powerful ‘simulated sunlight’ lights are needed to grow cucumbers out of season, so the company can supply up to one million cucumbers a week. But there was a malfunction with the glasshouse blinds on December 11 and 18.
Energy manager John Swain, who works at The Green House, told the Cambridge Independent: “We want to reassure people there hasn’t been an alien invasion, as interesting as that would have been for everyone.
“During normal operation we have blackout screens that cover the ceiling of the glass house and the side walls so that no light escapes. We've had two slightly unfortunate circumstances in a glass house that was being prepared for a crop where workers had gone in later to carry on getting the place ready and the screens didn't come on as quickly as they could have done. Both of those events were picked up within an hour or two of them happening.
“We have an incredibly technologically-advanced glass house driven by computer control and automatic sensors and technology doesn't always work the way you expect. Sometimes things happen and you have to go hit the reset button
“We are as upset about it as anyone, really. We do our utmost to make sure that we get our plant growth right and we want to make sure that we fit in the local community.”
