BEMUSED Sussex residents spotted a string of bright lights forming a perfectly straight line across the sky last night.

Some thought the lights could be shooting stars while others pointed to meteors as an explanation for the bizarre occurrence.

It has since been revealed that this was not a natural phenomenon, but a procession of entrepreneur Elon Musk’s “Starlink” satellites.

They are part of the South African’s SpaceX project, which has the “mission of enabling humans to become a spacefaring civilisation and a multi-planet species by building a self-sustaining city on Mars”.

The Argus:

To achieve this, Elon Musk “oversees the development and manufacturing of advanced rockets and spacecraft for missions to and beyond Earth orbit” - including those seen last night.

A SpaceX spokesman said: “By pioneering the development of fully and rapidly reusable rockets and spacecraft, SpaceX is dramatically reducing the cost of access to space, the first step in making life on Mars a reality in our lifetime.”

This has not been the only extraordinary sight seen across Sussex skies in recent nights.

The Lyrid meteor shower started on Thursday and has seen shooting stars flash across the sky every four to six minutes.

This year’s shower will peak after dark on the night of April 22 and last until April 25.

Like most meteor showers, the Lyrid occurs when particles of comet debris enter our atmosphere and burn up, appearing as shooting stars.

The Argus:

It’s known as the Lyrid shower as the shooting stars appear to originate from a point in the constellation Lyra.

While the peak of the shower won’t be until the early hours of April 22, there’s a good chance you’ll see shooting stars during the later part of the evening so you won’t have to stay up too late to catch a glimpse.

You are likely to see around 10 to 15 shooting stars an hour during the shower but the Lyrid is known for unexpected surges where it’s possible there will be as many as 100.