Reported sightings of a mysterious light shining down from the sky on Wednesday evening coincided with the launch of a space rocket in Florida.

The sightings prompted a slew of calls to the Bermuda Maritime Operations centre around 7pm, with members of the public reporting a bright white glow and lights shining down from overhead.

Donald Smith, of Hamilton Parish, said he saw a circular object coming out of the North West and heading in a north-easterly direction around 7.06pm.

“The thing itself was circular, or cylindrical. We thought it was a helicopter with a spotlight at first,” said Mr Smith, who saw the object from Pembroke.

He added: “But the thing wasn’t even close. If it was as far away as it looked, it must have been huge.

“We saw about a good 45 seconds of it climbing and then it just started to fade. The amount of light it was giving off and its shape were the craziest things; it was so unusual.”

A Bermuda Maritime Operations spokesman confirmed that it was not a distress flare, and ascribed the phenomenon to “atmospherics”, adding that such reports were not uncommon.

However, at 6.03pm EST a Falcon 9 space rocket was launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site in Florida.

And Bermuda Weather Service meteorologist Jeff Torgerson confirmed that it was possible to witness such events from Bermuda.

He added: “We had broken cloud cover last night, with a high level of cirrus clouds, so any space activity could certainly have been visible.”

And it would not be the first time — in January last year the launch of a rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was visible over South Shore, moving from west to east. The Royal Gazette reached out to SpaceX, the company behind the launch, and NASA, but was unable to get confirmation by press time.