Time-lapse videos show off SpaceX's alien-looking rocket launch from the West Coast

People across California had a pretty spooky start to their Christmas weekend, when a SpaceX rocket created a bright, jellyfish looking plume in the twilight sky on Friday.

Time-lapse videos show the incredible, alien sight from the ground, revealing exactly what it looked like to residents on the ground, even those far from Vandenberg Air Force Base, where the Falcon 9 was launched with a clutch of communications satellites onboard.

"I arrived about two hours before launch time (1827 Arizona time) to have my gear prepped and ready for action. I started rolling the time-lapse sequences about 45 minutes prior to launch to capture some lead in footage," photographer Jesse Watson wrote in a video description of his time-lapse on Vimeo.

"1827 came by and I didn’t see anything, I was a little disheartened at first thinking maybe it wouldn’t show up or that something happened and they did not launch, but continued to roll the time-lapses," Watson added.

"Then after what seemed like ages, but in reality probably only a minute or two the Falcon 9 rocket blasted into the horizon and my cameras’ field of view."

Watson wasn't the only person to capture stunning time-lapse video of the unique launch. Photographers around the American West caught sight of the launch and snapped some amazing imagery.

This kind of eerie looking rocket plume can be created when the exhaust from a rocket catches sunlight as it goes above the horizon at nightfall during a launch.

That reflected sunlight can brighten up the rocket's plume creating the strange effect seen from the ground.

Effectively, even though it was dark from the surface of the Earth, the rocket got high enough that it actually caught the light emitted by the setting sun.