From the Daily Mail:
A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled.
Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave - although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet.
The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate.
Strange spiral: Residents in northern Norway were left stunned after the lightshow, which almost looked computer-generated, appeared in the skies above them
Curious: A blue-green beam of light was reported to have come shooting out the centre of the spiral
Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre - lasting for ten to twelve minutes before disappearing completely.
The Norwegian Meteorological Institute was flooded with telephone calls after the light storm - which astronomers have said did not appear to have been connected to the aurora, or Northern Lights, so common in that area of the world.
The mystery deepened tonight as Russia denied it had been conducting missile tests in the area.
Fred Hansen, from Bø in Vesterålen, described the sight as 'like a big fireball that went around, with a great light around it again.'
Confusion: The Norwegian Meteorological Institute was flooded with calls after the light storm
'It spun and exploded in the sky,' Totto Eriksen from Tromsø told VG Nett.
He spotted the lights as he walked his daughter Amalie to school.
He said: 'We saw it from the Inner Harbor in Tromsø. It was absolutely fantastic.
'It almost looked like a rocket that spun around and around and then went diagonally down the heavens.
'It looked like the moon was coming over the mountain, but then came something completely different.'
What could it be? Astronomers say the spectacle did not appear to have been connected to the aurora, or Northern Lights
'It was like a giant spiral - a shooting star that spun around and around. I initially thought it was a projector', added Axel Rose Berg, from Alta.
Celebrity astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told VG Nett he had never seen anything like the lights.
He said: 'My first thought was that it was a fireball meteor, but it has lasted far too long.
'It may have been a missile in Russia, but I can not guarantee that it is the answer.'
Air Traffic control in Tromsø claimed the light show lasted for two minutes, but admitted that was 'far too long to be an astronomical phenomena.'
Tromsø Geophysical Observatory researcher Truls Lynne Hansen was certain the light had been caused by a missile launch.
He told Norwegian media that the missile had likely lost control and exploded. The spiral, he claimed, was the result of light reflecting on the leaking fuel. He was quoted as saying the light was sunlight, despite the strange lights showing up at night.
The Barents Observer quoted Norwegian Defence spokesman Jon Espen Lien as saying that the Norwegian military does not know what the lights were - but that they were probably from a Russian missile.
He said it was normal for Russia to use the White Sea and the Barents Sea as a testing ground for missiles.
However a Moscow news outlet tonight quoted the Russian Navy as denying any rocket launches from the White Sea area.
Norway should be informed of such launches under international agreements, it was stressed.
The Russian Defence Ministry was unavailable for comment last night.
See video showing part of the light here, and below
UPDATE:
More:
Light in the sky over Norway, see at 7:50 am local time. Photo: Jan Petter Jørgensen via Vaeret
Apparently, this is not a Photoshopped image, as there are several more just like it, taken from various locations. This morning in northern Norway, people saw a strange light in the sky which shocked residents and so far, the phenomenon has yet to be explained. This picture was taken from a pier, looking to the east, approximately at 07.50 am local time. "I can imagine that it went on for two, three minutes," said the photographer Jan Petter Jørgensen. "It was unbelievable. I was quite shaken when I saw it."
The spiral as seen over Borras, Norway. Via Altaposten.no
"It consisted initially of a green beam of light similar in colour to the aurora with a mysterious rotating spiral at one end," said another eyewitness, Nick Banbury of Harstad, quoted on Spaceweather.com. "This spiral then got bigger and bigger until it turned into a huge halo in the sky with the green beam extending down to the . According to the press, this could be seen all over northern norway and must therefore have been very high up in the atmosphere to be seen hundreds of km apart."
Here's a link to a video of the spiral forming.
"[A popular] suggestion at the moment is that it was a rocket shot up by a Russian submarine in the White Sea, but the Russians deny this apparently. A big mystery indeed!"
According to NRK, there were advance warnings about several Russian missile launches from the White Sea from December 7-10, but an anonymous source in the Northern Fleet said they had no information about the incident. Press Attaché from Russia’s Embassy in Oslo, Vladimir Isupov, did not have any immediate information that could explain the light phenomenon over Northern Norway.
UPDATE: Doug Ellison from UnmannedSpaceflight.com did a very cool simulation of a tumbling rocket stage throwing out unspent fuel in two directions, and what it would look like. The question, though would be how the spiral of fuel was lit. It possibly could have been back-lit by the soon-to-rise sun.
Another eyewitness said, "We saw it from the Inner Harbor in Tromsø. It was absolutely fantastic. It almost looked like a rocket that spun around and around, and then went diagonally down the heavens. It looked like the moon was coming over the mountain, but then came something completely different, "said Totto Eriksen.
We'll keep you posted on any explanations that come out on this!
I also received a report today from a geophysicist in Papua, Indonesia who observed "an enormous flare (bolide?) visible here at Tomage (2°39'27"S 132°59'27"E), and the sighting was at a bearing approximately 165 (East of South) and the flare seemed to begin at about 30 degrees above the horizon." Paul Anderson said the date and time of the flare was approximately 2009.12.09 12:39 UTC
"I have seen meteors all my life but this was extraordinarily bright and lit up the sky. Not sure what the trajectory was aside from a slight (15 degrees, perhaps) trend to the West but this should probably be known
somewhere. My guess is it entered steeply from the North," he said.
Anyone else in or near Indonesia see anything similar?
10 comments:
The coverage at the following site includes a computer simulation of a spiraling rocket stage that exactly matches what's seen in the videos:
http:/www.universetoday.com/2009/12/09/weird-giant-spiral-seen-in-sky-over-norway/
If the Russians aren't admitting to having launched a rocket, could they be either a) just behaving like they usually do by denying everything, or b) not willing to identify who was firing that rocket.
Whatever it was, they got some really gorgeous photos out of it.
!@?%!!
Make that
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/12/09/werid-giant-spiral-seen-in-sky-over-norway/
It's gotta be a Russian Rocket. I almost wonder if it could have been some combination of a rocket colliding with Northern Lights all backlit by the sun which was about to rise.
Either that or something broke out of Area 51 again. . .
It's the spirit of the ONE heading across the pole to collect his Nobel
Epa,
Exactly.
Where are the three wise men?
Don't tell me they're Emanuel, Axelrod, and Valerie Jarrett.
Epa
No kidding -- google norway light spiral and check out all the posts on Obummah and the Nobel Peace Prize.
Plus there are cults taking credit for this thing I haven't heard about in at least 20 years.
I suspect rocket spiral plus sun backlight will about cover it. They did say it was just before dawn.
Why Indonesia?
Pastorius -- no no no --Emanuel Holder and Jennings
Sounds like Emanuel will be the one who ends up taking the fist in that trio.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, Rahm.
Dont they normally self destruct these rockets if they go out of control? What good would it be to have a stray rocket in the sky?
Im sure a rocket test would have been terminated sooner..no, this was definitelly a worm hole opening up to drop the lost mahdi. Ahmedinamonkey said so.
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