It was a Tuesday evening in January 1938 that left residents across Surrey and Hampshire utterly captivated. Reports poured in from Farnham, Bordon, Headley and beyond as a rare aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, display illuminated the skies in a spectacular celestial show.

At first, many locals believed the strange red and green glows were searchlights from Farnborough or Odiham aerodromes.

“The glow was unlike anything we had seen before,” recalled a Castle Hill resident. “At first we thought it was an air display, but as the red splendour spread east and west across the horizon, it became clear this was something extraordinary.”

Mr A.S. Edwards, of the Haslemere Natural History Society, described pink hazes with parallel beams, low on the horizon at first, before moving overhead by 10pm and finally swelling into “full bloom” with an amazing intensity of colour.

Across the area, the spectacle left people in awe. Some feared it heralded the end of the world, while others assumed it was an air display, until the BBC evening news confirmed the extraordinary celestial event.

In Headley, the sky appeared a deep red, leading some residents to believe there were fires in the distance.

Over Bordon Camp, a vivid red light seemed to hover in the sky, prompting speculation that the Royal Air Force was carrying out a secret night-time exercise.

It was only the following morning, when they read their newspapers, that many people realised the truth: the display had been the Northern Lights, a phenomenon rarely seen so far south.

From the Hog’s Back to Sandhills Common in Haslemere, observers described waves of pink and green light, with beams stretching across the night sky.

Mr A.S. Edwards, of Haslemere, recalled seeing the lights “full overhead by 10 o’clock, a magnificent amount of pinkness, glowing like nothing I have ever witnessed before.”