Shopping mall lights resembled solar flares in the Philippines.

The bizarre illumination in the sky in purple and pink tones baffled locals in Manila but turned out to be a reflection of the building's exterior purple lights.

Footage shows the lights from the Mall of Asia's wall reflecting into the clouds in the sky on June 4.

Onlooker Ana Tan said: 'It looked like the northern lights but that would be impossible.'

The auroras are caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with the Earth's magnetic field lines near the poles. The Philippines' equatorial position puts it outside the oval-shaped areas surrounding the poles where this interaction occurs to produce the aurora lights.

A strong geomagnetic storm happened last month, resulting in vivid auroras visible across many northern regions. This ranked as a G4 or 'severe' storm on the geomagnetic storm scale, one of the strongest in recent years.