Spirals in the night sky over New Zealand (credit: Alasdair Burns / Twinkle Dark Sky Tours)

The strange swirl seen in the New Zealand night sky was caused by one of Elon Musk’s rockets.

Some people on the Internet want this strange pattern to have an extraordinary origin, which was the result of the SpaceX Falcon 9 releasing fuel after launching the payload.

The rocket was launched on Sunday morning and carried by the Globalstar DM15 satellite.

As the rocket rotated to extinguish the fuel, contrails were created that reflected the sunlight. It was the illuminated wings of the rocket that created the visible blue vortex.

These types of spirals are designed with artificial rockets, but the impressive display surprised people when they saw them.

Stuart Island star Alas der Burns said that Spiral was the strangest thing he had ever seen.

It was absolutely weird. It was like a huge spiral. And it moved north very slowly and quietly across the night sky, and then it collapsed on its way,” Burns told staff.

“We immediately called all of our neighbors and got them out, so we were a bit nervous looking up from the shared bag with about five people.