TWO pals rushed to see the Northern Lights illuminating the sky — only to discover the cosmic glow was the purple signage of a Premier Inn.
Karim Akhtar, 22, and Sully Laurent, 21, were walking home from a night out in Norwich when they saw the awesome spectacle.
But in a hilarious TikTok video they posted, which has gone viral, the excited pair mistook a city centre budget hotel for the aurora borealis.
The hapless duo had visited Iceland in January hoping to see the Northern Lights, and later joked they were disappointed to have “missed them again”.
Sheepish Karim, a University of East Anglia pharmacology student from Liverpool, said: “The reaction to the video has been crazy. I didn’t expect it to be so popular.
“For sure, we thought it was the Northern Lights . . . you can tell by my reaction on the video.
“It’s certainly a good start to my TikTok career.”
A rare solar storm led to the aurora borealis dazzling the nation last weekend.
The Met Office today said it may be visible again in parts of Britain over the next few days.
Premier Inn joked today: “There’s no need to search the skies, Premier Inn is a beacon of light.”
The Northern Lights occur when charged particles collide with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere around the magnetic poles.
In the northern hemisphere, most of this activity takes place within a band known as the aurora oval – but when activity is strong, it expands to cover a greater area.
