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The New York skyline turned a bizarre blue last night after an explosion at a power plant caused panic and confusion for millions across the city.

The blast at the Con Edison substation in Astoria, Queens, lit up the city’s sky and caused power to be cut at many addresses across the area, including an airport an a prison.

Bewildered residents took to the streets and shared images on social media after the mysterious-looking pulsating haze filled the sky for three minutes after the blast at around 9.20pm.

As a result Twitter erupted with alien memes from users who implied extraterrestrial life could be the cause of the eerie blue light.

One Twitter user likened the huge light to the moment in sci-fi movie Independence Day when an alien space ship hovers over the Empire State Building and blasts it with a blue laser beam.

Others suggested it could be an inter-dimensional portal to another world or from another Will Smith film, Men In Black, and that everyone who witnessed the light would have their memories erased to cover up the extraterrestrial visit.

The NYPD were forced to say the blue light was not the result of an alien invasion after so many residents questioned whether the source came from extraterrestrial visitors.

A spokesman from an official account tweeted:

It is thought the blue aura was caused by a shorted-out power line, which can occur when live wires touch each other, grounded objects or the earth itself.

A blue light in the skies above New York City after a power plant explosion.

A ‘power flash’, as it is known, can be a combination of blue, green, turquoise and orange, originating from damaged electrical equipment causing arcing electrical discharges to light up the sky.

Videos posted on social media showed a blue light with a green aura that flashed bright white and when viewed from a distance stretched across a large section of the city.

In some clips it even looked like two separate lights, with a portion originating from the ground and a higher section floating in the sky.

Nearby La Guardia airport was forced to ground all flights for more than an hour due to the outage during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.

Officials at the notorious Rikers Island jail were also forced to use backup generators when their electricity shut off for 25 minutes and there were delays on the subway.

There were no injuries in the blast, the fire was quickly contained, and many saw the lighter side of the mystifying incident.

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