Huge fireball lights up the sky leaving city baffled

People have been left wondering what caused a huge fireball in the sky tonight. Have a look at footage of the explosion:

A lightning strike at a food waste recycling plant in Oxfordshire triggered a large gas explosion, with people seeing the dark night sky lit up by the massive fireball.

Lots of people were left questioning the lightning strike, with some going so far as to wonder whether the conspiracy theory would rumble up and pin the blame on an 'alien invasion'.

According to the BBC the Severn Trent Green Power Plant at Cassington, Oxfordshire, said one of their biogas tanks exploded after the lightning strike.

They said that the explosion occurred at around 7:20pm and fortunately nobody had been injured in the unexpected blast, the company said they were working with emergency services to secure the site.

The food waste recycling plant turns waste into biogas which can be used as fuel, but the lightning strike blew up one of the storage tanks.

Oxford resident Jack Frowde told PA 'the whole room lit up with a brilliant white light' when the explosion occurred before he heard 'a huge crack which sounded like really heavy thunder'.

PA

When he looked out of the window 'the sky was pulsating orange' which faded after around 20 seconds.

Someone else said they heard a 'shockwave and heard a loud rumble in the distance', with several saying the fireball from the blast lit up the sky while they were left wondering what the source of the explosion had been.

A resident of nearby Witney said the power went off in their area which left them 'stood there thinking wtf'.

Fortunately it doesn't seem to have been extra-terrestrials as the company confirmed what had happened in their plant and made no mention of anything beyond a bolt of lightning being the cause of the gas explosion.

A number of videos of the blast and the sky illuminated by a fireball have ended up doing the rounds on social media.