Did I see Northern Lights last night?

[tomorrowalready]

Tempted to put this in AIBU but hope there may be some knowledgeable
people here.
For info, I am in Birmingham, early hours of 1August about 2 am went to back door to get cat in, no sign of cat but notice lights shooting up over to north east direction under the clouds.
At first seemed to be like searchlights but not bright, light greyish, first one then another, then realised there was also a flickering light drifting under the clouds also. I thought it could be connected to Commonwealth Games as from that direction but no idea why at that time in morning.
Still no cat so went back in and tried again maybe 10 minutes later.
Same process of lights shooting upwards and drifting across happened in same positions in same light greyish with a tinge of pinkish green.
Watched for a couple of minutes no sound just same repeated process.
Still no cat so went to bed.
I have tried to find any local reports of lights at that time but found none.
Have also looked at the northern lights website but no reports of local recent activity but some older photos of similar pale lights in other places.
I have actually seen the green lights over my suburb years ago in winter and was surprised to see no reports then either but then it is Birmingham and I have also experienced earthquakes and tornados without ever leaving my house so I am now inclined think they were a pale form of northern lights.
Did anyone else see them or agree with me?

I live in Northern Canada. They have been extremely active over the last few days, so it’s entirely possible.

There were some white spotlight beams being projected into the sky on the night after the games.
Anything mentioned by neighbours, local FB site?

I think unlikely, but not impossible, in Summer. To see them as far south as Edinburgh it has to be exceptionally clear and usually it would look more like the horizon being purple or green and not really distinct shapes or movement.

im no expert though! Maybe it was

I had spent a fair amount of time trying to find some reference or explanation, Popvan, but the only references were to the drone lightshow from last month or Elon Musk's satellites which looked entirely different. Also I have seen spotlights projected for other events and they were much brighter and moved in a criss-cross pattern the first lights were kind of blinking on and off in a kind of vague way slightly off time with each other followed by the drifting wispy cloud like formations rolling across from the west and then just fading out. I cannot see the horizon as it is blocked by buildings so don't know if there was any light from there. I can't say how long they continued as I wanted to go to bed but exactly the same thing happened at least twice in the 10 minutes I looked out.

Aletterfromseneca, yes those were the conditions and what I saw some years ago in winter and was higher up looking down across the city but as moosebetimeforsnow says there have been reports of more aurora activity so I am just curious if I am the only person in my area to have seen this. If you do see the lights Moose, are they always brightly coloured as I have seen in many photographs?

Have a look at images for noctilicent clouds and see if they fit.

Though it doesn't sound like noctilucent clouds - they don't change form rapidly.

Definitely not the northern lights.

Thanks to all sending replies and information. I have looked up noctilucent clouds and what I saw does seem to fit with some of the photographs showing the phenomenon in Europe recently. As here: www.severe-weather.eu/wp-content/gallery/weather-photos/lukashauser.jpg. (sorry don't know if that will be clickable). There was definitely a swirling floating movement against a background of thinner static clouds which is why I noticed. The upright pillar types are a a bit stranger though as I said not bright and focused as I have seen searchlight displays and why send them up about 2 am? But maybe could have been some kind of reflection from the ground as they were coming from the area across the city where the Games are being held.

There's a solar storm, due to hit earth tomorrow, could this be behind it?

Coming in a little late, but you could try a local astonomy society - likely to know if a natural phenomenon.