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Gigantic Spiral of Light Observed Over Norway; Rocket To Blame?
Ch_Omega writes "A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night (more pictures) has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled. Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing display to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor to 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. Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its center — 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 Bad Astronomer makes the case that a malfunctioning rocket spewing fuel is a parsimonious explanation, backed up by witnesses to similar events and a cool simulation (on video). An anonymous reader suggests that this Proton-M Carrier Rocket might be responsible for the display.
Odin's back. And he's pissed. The spiral is his wide brimmed hat. And he's finally got his favorite blue laser back from Loki. Unfortunately he can only use it on one person per night. Huginn and Muninn are doing surveillance right now so it's time to get those shrines up in the backyard, people! Raise your cups of mead and abandon Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. The Norse were right, repent before it's too late! Finally, a reason to worship a deity I can identify with--Loki!
My work here is dung.
There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!
Sending Bogons back from the Future.
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BadAsstronomer seems to have picked up on a TV station's assertion that it was a russian ICBM test launch - it's certainly pretty, but unfortunately, not the black hole the LHC was supposed to bring us. Bastards.
Truck driver, plumber, Linux systems engineer.
All hands on deck: Swirly thing alert!
...I for one...
Welcome our now very dizzy alien overlords...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
I got this from the BA forum:
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Awesomely bizarre light show freaks out Norway
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[UPDATE: See bottom of post; I knew it!]
Earlier in the morning today (around 8:00 a.m. local time) this weird thing was seen over the skies of Norway:
norway_spiral
My first reaction when I saw that was, "What the FRAK is THAT?!" My second thought was, "Photoshop". But then I saw lots of pictures of this on a bunch of different Norwegian media, so I don't think it's a digital hoax. Then videos started surfacing, like this one, which clearly show the spiral spinning. It's not just a static picture, whatever this thing was; it was really in the sky.
However, after a moment, I realized this must be a rocket, most likely spiraling out of control. I don't understand all the details -- I don't have all the info yet -- but a rocket fits what we're seeing here. First, this was seen all over Norway, so it must have been at a high altitude to be so visible. Second, the blue spiral angling down to the right is clearly due to perspective. A rocket spiraling around, and coming up from the lower right, would appear to make tight spirals when it was far away and bigger ones as it got closer.
Third, you can actually see the bright white spiral spinning in the videos. That threw me for a second, to be honest, but after a moment I figured that it makes sense if the rocket is headed more or less straight toward the camera. Whatever it is being lit up (exhaust, or a leaking payload?) would appear to expand in a spiral like water from a spinning sprinklerhead. The spiral itself is not spinning any more than water from the sprinkler is; that's an illusion of motion.
norway_spiral2Fourth, after a few moments, a black disk appears to expand in the center of the white spiral, as seen in this picture (it's a little fuzzy; you can see the person taking it must have used a long exposure because foreground lights are jittery, but you get the idea). That's exactly what I would expect if whatever is being ejected by the rocket ran out; the arms of the spiral would expand away from the center, leaving black emptiness in the middle.
So that's my hypothesis. A rocket got out of control, perhaps losing a stabilizer, and started to spiral. The two spirals, different in shape, size, and color, indicate something happened in the middle of all this (the rocket second stage fired while still spinning, or something else started leaking out), changing the rocket's direction. Then, when the fuel or whatever ran out, the white spiral began to disappear from the inside out as the material expanded in space.
So who launched it? The Russians are a likely guess, but -shocker -- they're denying it. I'd love to know and find out what the details are, but whoever shot it up and whatever the purpose, I'm pretty sure what we're seeing here is a rocket launch that didn't go exactly according to plan.
Note: there are a lot of stories online about this with more very cool pictures: The Sun and The Daily Mail have it in English, while Norwegian media include VG Nett, Altaposten.no, NRK.no, Framtidinord.no, Nordlis.no, and amazing videos can be seen here and here.
UPDATE: From Doctor Atlantis I heard of this video which simulates particles being spewed out from a spinning rocket booster. Look familiar?
Photos: Jan Petter Jørgensen and Morten Kristiansen. Tip o' the payload bay to the many folks who alerted me to this story!
December 9th, 2009 10:47 AM Tags: Norway, rocket
by Phil Plait in Antiscience, Cool stuff, Pretty pictures, Skepticism | 58 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >
58 Responses to "Awesomely bizarre light show freaks out Norway"
1. 1. Kevin Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:53 am
That reminds me of something we saw waaay back in the late 1980's during a public night at our observatory.
Finally, we've found the entrance...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk.nyud.net/news/worldnews/article-1234430/Mystery-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html
http://i.dailymail.co.uk.nyud.net/i/pix/2009/12/09/article-1234430-07887B10000005DC-48_634x421.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk.nyud.net/i/pix/2009/12/09/article-1234430-0787DEA4000005DC-908_634x348.jpg
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Sigh... this is why I should ALWAYS hit preview. Should have just posted this. http://www.frisnit.com/cgi-bin/navtex/view.cgi?id=1159919&lan=en&type=24H&message_filter=&search=ROCKET&station_filter=&date=2009-12-09&source=a4f7a470329caf85e2488355c7e88328&offset=0
Except that multiple images from multiple angles show a circular phenomenon, which means that the source must be roughly spherical.
Also, there are no clouds in any of the images.
Also, you're an idiot.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Damnit, apparently the earth is running OSX and somebody has tried to "undo" the last ten years; this has resulted in the spinning beach ball of death.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Ob. Men In Black:
"The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."
Comment of the year
It's just an experiment that the iRobot corp was conducting, where they cross a Roomba with one of their military devices. Apparently this is related to Bill Gates' theories that hurricanes can be controlled with the proper application of technology. Dean Kamen was not not available for comment on speculation that it was related to a Death Star marketing tie-in for his Luke "Skywalker" prosthetic hand project.
[
I see no reason why the phenomenon couldn't be repeated 10+ years later with a more advanced tool.
Then you haven't seen the pictures of this thing, because there are no clouds on which to project an image.
My vote's on the rocket hypothesis. It's simpler than supposing somebody managed to project an image of spirals onto an invisible screen in the sky for no discernible reason.
Theory #3: A sky-writer pilot was making an "@" for an email address, but passed out.
Table-ized A.I.
The reason nobody's mentioned UFOs yet is because whatever it was originated from the Earth.
No, the reason nobody's mentioned UFOs yet is because this phenomenon was spotted over Norway, not Arkansas.
This ain't rocket surgery.
UFO's are unidentified. Everything about a UFO is unknown. Space is one, albeit very unlikely, UFO hypothesis.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Ubisoft called it wants its logo back!
U.F.O. stands for Unidentified Flying Object. Those are the only conditions for being a U.F.O.
Isn't UFO simply an acronym for "Unidentified flying object"? I'm pretty sure this phenomenon counts as one.
In fact, the vast majority of UFOs have been proven to originate from earth. That is, all that have been identified and thus are no longer unidentified. We cannot from the observations rule out extraterrestrial visitors, but it appears to be pretty unlikely.
Stop the brainwash
...I told you he was a liberal.
Table-ized A.I.
My vote's on the rocket hypothesis.
While I consider myself a skeptic, the "it's a rocket" explanation sounds really dubious to me - it's like hearing loud creaking noises and banging and saying "oh, it's just wind" - disregarding the fact that wind isn't capable of producing such noise.
IANARS, but I haven't ever seen anything even close to what the photos look like IRL, nor on any real photos, including those of various rocket launches, etc. Nor can I think of any sound reason as to why a flying or even exploding rocket may produce an effect such as this, especially the beam (keep in mind that it appeared after the rotating sphere, not before it).
If anyone who has a deeper understanding of the subject can come up with a sufficiently detailed and plausible explanation of how exactly a rocket may have caused this, I'm all ears.
Oh, as a side note (and to keep the conspiracy theory going), the "someone [Russians?] testing a new secret rocket" and "aliens!" theories are not mutually exclusive. If we see Poland invaded tomorrow from the east by hovertanks on antigravs with huge red stars painted of them, we'll know for sure.
UFO-Norway Arkansas, on the other hand, has no organization devoted to UFOs and ranks far behind California and New York in number of reports.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN_y5r7vHio
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
This was posted a few months ago but I have no idea when it happened. Look similar... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixLE3iuszbU Just skip to 35 seconds unless you can speak Chinese.
I suppose I could've left the cruise control bit out, but my thought process at the time was "I don't want friction to kick in so soon..."
The rest are necessary to remove any controlling aspect from the car. I could've said driverless, but someone would've chirped in "remote control!" for example, so I've found trying to rigidly define conditions a necessity for /.
So what you are saying is that the editors should be more parsimonious in their use of the English language?
it's like hearing loud creaking noises and banging and saying "oh, it's just wind" - disregarding the fact that wind isn't capable of producing such noise.
I think the people in New Orleans and Galveston might feel a bit differently!
This is my sig.
> - although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet
It's no fun buzzing Earth if there's no panic calling to authorities and calls for investigation of the subsequent coverup.
Bleezarp (from Alpha Centauri...)
What's this then? http://arkansasmufon.org/
I love you guys.
No other object has been misidentified as a flying saucer more often than the planet Venus.
Even the former leader of your United States of America, James Earl Carter Jr., thought he saw a UFO once, but it's been proven he only saw the planet Venus.
Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you, it was Venus.
Your scientists have yet to discover how neural networks create self-consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception. Yet you somehow brazenly declare seeing is believing?
Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder, and I wouldn't flaunt your ignorance by telling anyone that you saw anything last night other than the planet Venus, because if you do, you're a dead man.
New York and California also have many many more people than Arkansas. This could either make these places more attractive to aliens, or maybe the ratio of alien sighters is the same but there are more of them because of population density.
Some numbers from Wolfram alpha (for what they are worth):
Arkansas-
population- 2.85 mil
density- 51.3 people/mi^2
Norway-
population- 4.7 mil
density- 39.6 people/mi^2
New York-
population- 8.36 mil
density- 401.9 people/mi^2
California-
population- 36.7 mil
density- 217.2 people/mi^2
If anyone who has a deeper understanding of the subject can come up with a sufficiently detailed and plausible explanation of how exactly a rocket may have caused this, I'm all ears.
Bad Astronomer has a good write-up, and he certainly knows his stuff. It's corroborated by a comment on the blog there as well:
That reminds me of something we saw waaay back in the late 1980’s during a public night at our observatory. All of a sudden there was a gasp from the crowd, and we looked out the dome to see this bright glowing ball traveling south to north (mostly). When we moved the telescope over to it, we could see in the eyepiece a small object from which the stuff was jetting out from. Later we found out it was a booster stage venting unused propellant.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Those who remember the very good John Wyndham novel "The Day of the Triffids" (later made into a very bad movie) will recall that the population of most of the civilized world is transfixed by a spectacular show of mysterious lights in the sky. The first-person narrator is stuck in a hospital recovering from eye surgery with patches over his eyes and feels frustrated at being left out.
A few days later it turns out that everyone who saw the lights has gone blind, leaving the narrator one of the few people in the world who can still see.
The story suggests but never says that it is some space-based weapons system that was accidentally deployed.
So, when viewing mysterious and spectacular unexplained lighting phenomena in the sky, perhaps it would be prudent to keep one eye closed.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
A UFO, or unidentified flying object, can originate anywhere. It just must conform to the following:
Unidentified: unknown origin
Flying: not in/on the water/land
Object: another word for noun
To recap, it could be something that is in the air, and you have no idea wtf it is. It may have come from the Earth, Mars, or the Russians.
Something witty.
That's because a UFO isn't an explanation -- a UFO is an "unidentified flying object". You could compare it to specific instances of unexplained aerial phenomena -- though that's unlikely to help explain it unless the conditions surrounding this occurrence help explain some whole class of previously-unexplained aerial phenomena -- but to compare it to UFOs in general is somewhat pointless since the only thing that that class shares in common is that they appear above the ground and are not explained.
pedantic
"While I consider myself a skeptic, the "it's a rocket" explanation sounds really dubious to m""
Because you are a skeptic is why you question it.
The linked photos are of a long exposure time. Actual videos of the event make it pretty clear it's a rocket spinning out of control and spews something out while it spins. Probably propellant. It's altitude is high enough to be in the Sun light.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The article about the Russian Proton-M Carrier Rocket is from Dec 7th of....2005?
But once you call it a UFO, isn't now "identified"?
Though I disagree with you on your points, if I had mod points, I would have modded you awesome for the "Also, you're an idiot." There is a point to that.
I live in England. We once saw the Sun. That was unusual.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
It seems he has gotten the aliens to crash on another country besides the UK this holiday season...
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
"must be roughly spherical. "
Or spinning.
Or high enough in the atmosphere that the "different angles" weren't actually that different.
Since it also would have to be that high to catch the light of the sun, this seems likely.
The enemies of Democracy are
"While I consider myself a skeptic, the "it's a rocket" explanation sounds really dubious to me - it's like hearing loud creaking noises and banging and saying "oh, it's just wind" - disregarding the fact that wind isn't capable of producing such noise."
As you point out, you're not a rocket scientist. Actual rocket scientists and others who have seen a lot of rocket launches have seen similar things before. If that's not enough for you, the Bad Astronomer has posted a simulation of the exhaust from a rocket tumbling out of control - the simulation looks just like the pictures.
... about 20 years ago, over Syktyvkar, Russia.
That was clearly a rocket (I saw rocket launches before, living downrange of Plesetsk), but at some point the thing has "stopped" in the sky and started rolling out a spiral. The rotating object and the spiral quickly faded away, but the gaseous afterglow along the ascent trajectory remained, as it usually does.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
- If its spinning the pattern would probably be roughly symmetrical. the dude from Bad Astronomy noted that he's seen rockets do that sort of thing before
- Which makes it more likely that its something mundane like a rocket
- Russia apparently routinely uses the Baltic Sea for testing, and notifies Norway so that no one freaks out (it's not like it's only a few feet from Russia to Norway across the Baltic)
- It's (intelligently) noted that the altitude of the cloud makes it quite likely the light is sunlight (in spite of the dismissal by the non-scientific article).
Here is a well documented launch of an Minotaur rocket from Vandenberg AFB in 2005 which has some similarities:
http://www.spacearchive.info/minotaur-streak.htm
As for the spiral in I my opinion, depending on the perspective of the viewer relative to rocket you can see this pattern if you are looking at the exhaust end of the rocket and the rocket started to spin so that exhaust plume started to create a spiral. As the rocket lost total directional control, the rocket controller ordered a self-destruct so the sudden "hole" in the middle of the spiral as the rocket exhaust stops at the end of the event.
Here is another link about rocket trails with an expert description http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020926.html
I am sure someone can identify it, but won't.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
I was attacked by a UFO once.
Then I identified the flying object. It was a stuffed animal thrown by my brother.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
This is neither the first time nor the second time this has happened. These videos show the exact same phenomenon exhibited in TFA. It's a rocket spinning mostly out of control, as reported here.
"While I consider myself a skeptic, the "it's a rocket" explanation sounds really dubious to m""
Because you are a skeptic is why you question it.
The linked photos are of a long exposure time. Actual videos of the event make it pretty clear it's a rocket spinning out of control and spews something out while it spins. Probably propellant. It's altitude is high enough to be in the Sun light.
Also, images 3 and 5 from the second linked site in the summary show a cloud near the horizon that seems highly reminiscent of what a rocket would leave as it leaves the launch pad and heads skyward, illuminated by the setting sun. The cloud does not obviously link up with the other phenomena, but it isn't much of a stretch to connect a line between the two.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I stared at that spinning little ball of light for like 3 minutes before I realized it was just waiting for the video to load.
-Arthur
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