A social media prankster managed to get a phony photo broadcast on Good Morning Britain today to hilarious effect.
Weather woman Laura Tobin shared pictures of the Northern Lights that had been sent in by viewers after the aurora was seen as far south as Kent and Cornwall last night.
The lights are caused by solar storms on the surface of the sun giving out clouds of electrically charged particles which can travel millions of miles and collide with the Earth.
Most particles are deflected away but some are captured in the Earth’s magnetic field and accelerate down towards the north and south poles, colliding with atoms and molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere.
They are seldom seen further south than the Scottish highlands, but a coronal hole high-speed stream combined with a fast coronal mass ejection led to sightings across the UK.
Photos have been widely shared, but not all of them are legitimate.
Nick Harvey took to Twitter on Sunday to share his pic from East Sussex, which amusingly contained a giraffe at the bottom and rolling mountains in the background.
He wrote: “The #NorthernLights from Crowborough, East Sussex are taking my breath away.”
GMB picked up the photo and broadcast it this morning.
Responding on Twitter, Harvey said: “Thank you, GMB. I am literally crying laughing.”
Several people responded to the photo, with one calling for news sites to check the images they use.
“Everyone knows Crowborough giraffes have longer ears than that”, he humorously said.
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