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Mysterious spiral of light over northern Norway


Pie™

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I'm just cross-posting this with my thread at SomethingAwful, since I think it's fascinating and exciting:

 

The original thread can be found here

 

Some back-story:

I live in Tromsø, which is a rather small town in the north of Norway. About an hour and a half ago this morning, at 07:45, I was awoken by my flatmate raving on about something "you just have to see!". Dizzy and confused I walked to the door, and peeking out at the sky I saw one of the most spectacular things I've ever been witness to. Now keep in mind that this far north, we barely have any sunlight at all this time of year, so it was still pitch dark outside. There was a spiral of light in the sky, expanding like some kind of green laser.

Now, in my town we see the Aurora Borealis every winter, so green lights in the sky is not a new phenomenon. Never the less, in my 20 years here I've never seen anything like this, and for a second I thought it looked like a huge explosion in the distance.

We returned inside with much speculation as to what this could be, and I scoured the internet for explanations. Now, at 09:00 the phenomenon has started popping up in articles on local northern news-sites, and appears to just have gone national.

 

From the article, loosely translated:

 

A mysterious phenomenen of light on the nightsky shocked citizens of northern and mid-Norway on wednesday morning....

 

...It spun around and exploded in the sky...

 

...It looked like it came over a mountain. First it followed a path, until it disintegrated. Then it suddenly became a huge sphere, so large that it covered the entire sky.

 

Meteorologists in Tromsø have no idea what caused the light:

 

"We don't know what it is. I don't want to assume anything about it, but it appears to have been very spectacular"

 

"People describe the moving light as overwhelming, extremely beautiful, and partially frightening. They describe it as a new years rocket that looks like a spinning spiral."

 

The phenomenon lasted for a few minutes, just before eight on Wednesday morning. The meteorologist says the light apparently has come from the east.

 

Some photos of the incident (not mine):

 

 

Fenomen_over_Borras_340147c.jpg

 

1260346061961_198.jpg

 

Fenomen_over_Borras_340152c.jpg

 

I've also read experts saying that this has nothing to do with the Aurora Borealis, and that it might have been a failed rocket launching in Russia. Has anyone else here seen anything like it, and can someone possibly shed some light (hurr) on what might have caused this?

 

 

A video has been uploaded by one of the nation's leading newspapers.

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Looking at those photos I would say it does look like a failed rocket lauch. In the top photo you can see the lauch point, and it seems to have spiraled out of control due a failed thruster or something. Very impressive images though.

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