IT was either a spectacular are rare celestial event - or a sign of impending global doom, depending on who who listened to.

In the early hours of Monday morning, a ‘blood moon’ was visible as a dramatic lunar eclipse took place. For the first time in 33 years the lunar eclipse – when the moon passes behind the earth into its shadow - also coincided with a supermoon, which appears slightly bigger and brighter in the night sky.

Somerset County Gazette: Lunar Eclipse

 

 

Here is the supermoon over the Somerset Levels

 

The eclipse began at 1.11am and ended at 6.22am and unlike solar eclipses, which can last just a few minutes, the most dramatic part was visible for more than an hour between 3.11am and 4.23am.

The supermoon eclipse has prompted prophecies of doom and the end of the world. Adding fuel to the theories is the fact the dramatic blood moon is part of a pattern of four lunar eclipses - known as the lunar tetrad.

The first occurred in 2014 and this is the last to take place in the tetrad, with each eclipse taking place about six months apart.

Books have been written claiming they are celestial signals which will fulfil biblical prophecies of the apocalypse.

Doom-mongering had been particularly ramped up as this lunar eclipse combined with a supermoon.