Forfar aurora hunter photographs ultra-rare ‘Steve’ light phenomenon above garden

A Forfar woman has shared the moment she photographed an ultra-rare phenomenon over her garden on Monday.

Kara Matthew, 20, was in her garden at Easterbank looking for the aurora borealis when she caught a glimpse of a mysterious glowing purple arc.

She later discovered it was a ‘Steve’.

An acronym for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, NASA describes Steve as a “rare, mysterious, glowing purple arc” that runs east to west and occurs closer to the equator than the northern and southern lights.

Kara, who spotted the Steve with her friend, Kelsey Fyfe, told The Courier: “I originally went out looking for the the aurora.

Forfar woman ‘didn’t believe it’ when rare Steve lights appeared

“Me and my friend were so confused as she’s never seen them.

“She asked what it was in the sky and I said I wasn’t sure and pulled my phone out and we were so confused because I’ve seen the northern lights and that definitely wasn’t them.

“After some research, and help from a space-obsessed little brother, I found out it was a Steve.

“It’s supposed to be super rare because it needs to have a certain weather for it.

“I didn’t believe it at first when my brother told me I was on the phone to them.

“They said, ‘Kara, you don’t realise how crazy this is to catch it on camera’.

“I’m obsessed with taking pictures of the sky at night due to my new camera on my iPhone 15 so I have hundreds, but when I realised I was shocked at myself how well I caught it.

“It was so cool, me and my friend were jumping around in the back garden absolutely buzzing.”

According to the BBC, the name Steve was inspired by a scene from the animated movie “Over the Hedge”.

In the film, the animals are afraid of a garden hedge and name it Steve to ease their fears.