Friends mistake Premier Inn for Northern Lights

Two friends mistook the purple glow from a Premier Inn for the Northern Lights.

Karim Akhtar, 22, and Sully Laurent, 21, were walking home from a night out in Norwich on Friday when they saw illuminations in the sky.

Initially thinking it was the aurora borealis, which made an appearance across the UK due to a rare solar storm, they soon discovered it was in fact the hotel on Duke Street.

Their TikTok video has now been viewed more than six million times.

The pair had visited Iceland in January hoping to see the Northern Lights and joked that they were disappointed to have "missed them again".

Before posting the video, Karim Akhtar and Sully Laurent had been to a university ball in Norwich city centre

"The reaction to the video has been crazy. I didn’t expect it to be so popular," Mr Akhtar, a University of East Anglia pharmacology student from Liverpool, said.

"For sure we thought it was the Northern Lights... you can tell by my reaction.

"It’s certainly a good start to my TikTok career," he laughed.

At the start of the video, the friends can be heard saying "Oh my god" before asking, "how have we been catfished?" - a term used to describe a fake identity.

In response to Mr Akhtar's video, Premier Inn said: "There’s no need to search the skies, Premier Inn is a beacon of light and can bring the auora glow directly to your room, without needing a camera to see it."

The Northern Lights made an appearance across the UK during the weekend due to a rare solar storm.

Mr Akhtar said he still hoped to see them one day.