The sky in an Australian town mysteriously turned pink. Turns out it was caused by a secret medical cannabis farm nearby.

• Residents of an Australian town were left baffled after the sky mysteriously turned pink on Tuesday.
• Turns out the light came from lamps in a secret medicinal cannabis factory, ABC News Australia said.

The sky in Mildura, Australia, was mysteriously set alight with a pink glow on Tuesday night, baffling local residents.

It later emerged that the glow was caused by the lamps in a secret medical-cannabis factory located nearby.

One witness, Tammy Szumowski, told the BBC that she had wondered if the apocalypse had arrived.

"I was just being a cool, calm mum, telling the kids: 'There's nothing to worry about,'" she told the BBC. "But in my head, I'm like, what the hell is that?"

The color was caused by lights in a facility run by the Cann Group pharmaceutical company, ABC News Australia reported, citing its CEO, Peter Crock. Cannabis plants need a "red spectrum light" in order to grow, Rhys Cohen, a spokesperson for the company, told The Guardian.

"Normally, the blackout blinds close at the same time as the sun sets, but last night we had the lights on and the blinds hadn't yet closed, so there was a period where it created a glow," Crock told ABC.

A spokesperson for Cann Group did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Medicinal cannabis was legalized in Australia in 2016, but the recreational use of the drug is banned.

Australia has a few medical-cannabis factories, but their locations are usually kept secret for security reasons, The Guardian reported. Cann Group obtained its license to grow medicinal cannabis legally earlier this year, the newspaper said.

Szumowski told the BBC that she had a "good laugh" when she found out the light had come from a secret factory.

"I reckon it was great — they should do it more often," she said.