Mysterious Light Display Leaves Norwegians and Astronomers Puzzled

Nifty! While I'd be overjoyed if this was (non-classified) evidence of extraterrestrial visitors, it's still pretty impressive, even if it was just another rock burning up in our atmosphere.

And before you alien-invasion folks start in, if they wanted to wipe us out, they could just hack our military's communication systems, locate our defense installations, and destroy them all at once from space. If this were evidence of ET's, the fact that our planet hasn't suffered massive orbital bombardment would seem to indicate that they're friendly, or at least more curious than hostile.

curiouser and curiouser

Very odd thing. Very interested as to what cuased it. I suspect some kinda metal meterior hitting the magneticsphere and cuasing a wierd wave in it that could bend light, but really have no idea how to prove it.

Could it be that this bizzar light show is what happens when Dark Matter particles Enter the stratosphere?

It's collisions in the Large Hadron Collider opening portals to another dimension.

dangit johncos! you beat me too it! LHC most definitely.

freudianslipnslide.blogspot.com

I like the mystery, and I think it is funny that people are always so ready either to deny alien involvement or to endorse it. I feel like this is a fairly easy mystery to solve, or at least to eliminate

Triangulate based on footage and find out exactly how high the spiral was and what the real trajectory and speed was. There is a finite range in which the most plausible (rocket) explanation is even possible. If it was too low, couldn't be a rocket or wind would have distorted the spiral, if it was too high the spiral is simply too big and the rocket traveling too fast. Also, I can see the perspective argument, but given the overlay light one could easily calculate trajectory. Based on what I see, it looks like it is headed towards the camera, on an arc, which would mean that if it is a rocket, they almost just started WW3.

Oh and BTW, since statistically speaking there is a high likelihood of intelligent alien life in the universe, I for for one welcome our new alien overlords. Without aliens, man kind will never find peace, and since we are not dead, we can assume if they are here...they are friendly...or at least SUPER lazy.

If that's a UFO, too bad for them, because if it is then they are in serious poo... The pattern looks like a catastrophic pressure leak to me.

Seriously speaking; this might be the result of a liquid-fuel rocket springing a leak high up in the atmosphere.

The eerie "cone of light" is propably the exhaust plume of the rocket, and the "spiral" the evicted fuel. With the black night sky behind, and the sun shining trough the upper layers of the stratosphere, you might get this kind of "glowing" effect.

I was hoping this would be a new firework and I could see them explode at my next trip to Disney Land..... Bummer

@NikitaJ: I kind of agree with you on the point that life, and with a very high propability intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe.

I just have a hard time to believe we've been "visited".

Looking at the first picture, at the top of the article, it looked suspiciously PhotoShopped and most likely is -- badly done, BTW. But, looking at the videos was more interesting.

My first thoughts brought me back to the Laser Rock Concerts they used to have back in the 70s when I was a kid. The blue laser light starts as a point then spreads to a ring. (I didn't actually see a spiral.) I've seen laser shows with weird cloud formations on TV too. Not exactly new. -- maybe a laser light show test or rehearsal.

Then, the yellow spirals, which is a separate event that occurred over China back in April, looked like exhaust from a rocket with a leaky gasket causing it to spiral -- maybe a rocket malfunction.

If the blue light can be tied to the yellow spirals, (and I don't see how one could make such an association), then it could be a new laser weapon to take down rockets -- maybe. But,it's blue. Weapons grade lasers are invisible. But, what do I know?

Maybe -- Massive Dynamic is trying to open up a permanent gateway to the Alternate Universe. (They have a website, you know.)

@Quintus: I agree that it is less than likely, but hell, it is less than likely that I could be motivated to get out of bed in the morning, and yet it happens everyday...statistics is funny like that.

And on the off chance that it is aliens, I am going to make one sit down with me and watch old Star Trek episodes. I wonder what an alien laughing its ass off will sound like...

Well lets eliminate the obvious, first off, can anyone find out when exactly this was and then correlate the date with the cloud cover in the area?
Assuming there was good cloud cover that could lend weight to the projected image theory, correct me if I'm wrong but I believe a projection would need a medium off of which to reflect?

Okay, you caught me. Never should have used those discounted parts for my galactic mind warper and global warmer. Believe me, I'm going to leave a scathing user review at the Website.

it was a russian rocket test. just check out the source links

Nice. Now why can't we have something like that in Texas? I wonder what causes that though.

I believe the top photo is a long time exposure, which accounts for the seemingly unnaturally bright foreground. I also did some research and found out that there was absolutely no cloud cover from around 6 pm Tuesday to now. I'm wondering if there was any noise that was associated with the lights. Wouldn't a rocket produce noise? It would be helpful to know the approximate hight of these light objects as well.

I wonder if we will ever know the truth.

Spiraling light nearly always accompanies black holes. In addition, the blue light from center vortex indicative of the expulsion of sub-atomic particles from both poles of a black hole. Looks like black holes are yet closer than we'd previously suspected. Just hope they burn out on their own without gobbling up the entire solar system.

Why do I look at image and expect to see a couple of guys from the 1960's popping out at any minute...

Seriously, though, I can buy the Russian rocket as an explanation for the material of the cloud, but what natural mechanism would account for such a beautiful and regular spiral shape? (Don't worry folks, I'm not suggesting aliens, but this is pretty unusual looking to be a regular cloud formation, regardless of its origin). I hope PopSci updates this story with more information regarding the possible causes of this display, because they've presented a real enigma here.

Want to know what is going on there after that. Is there any clue or sign of something there. It is not look like black hole because it doesn't swallow inward.

Again .. if someone did fireworks and it made twirling outward like the one in the video. But let us know the truth. :)

Clearly an inter-dimensional portal opened at the bottom of a pan-dimensional toilet and what we are seeing is the reflection of the bathroom light on the swirling water.

Now, this would lead me to ask whether any semi-solid matter found its way through the portal, or if it were only a "number one".

Although the symmetry of this phenomenon was impressive, it seems to have common features of a high altitude missile (there is a trail that leads to an origin point and it has been reported that the Russians were going to be doing missile tests this week). I think the question to ask is, What material was just atomized into the upper atmosphere over a great expanse of geography, and what environmental or health effects might it have, especially considering that our president is going to be in that area later this morning.

QIII: The Chinese one was No. 1. The Norwegian one was the cleaner.

I think if this were a rocket spiraling out of control it would tend to move around in the sky unless it is coming straight towards or heading directly away from the camera. Where it seems to be at a fixed point in each of the videos I tend to believe the dark matter collision idea. Probably the result of an attraction to sub atomic particles generated by LHC collisions, and it appears that the reaction between the dark matter, and our atmosphere is a beautiful spiral of light. Who would have guessed Van Gogh's "Stary Night" was actually an inspired peak into our future. Not unlike string theory I understand my theory is a bit difficult to grasp at first, but I would ask you to disprove either.

This looks like some sort of a laser projection on the sky. Probalbly a deed of a bunch of drunken geeks having a party in the mountains!!!

The first image says it all. Using the mountain/hill top to set-up and hide the projector. Really, nice projector. So is this thing going to be the next outdoor theater?

Looks to me what I would expect one version of an anti-missile defense to look like. The ability to stream large numbers of particles over a very large area would create an umbrella for a brief time of sorts.

However I enjoyed all the black, holes, alien, and Haldron collider theories. Not to say that we have a handle on the unknown or that scientist do not have a very long history of understating dangers to get funding.

The BBC has an article today stating that it was indeed a Russian missile failure.

"A Russian test launch of an intercontinental missile has failed, resulting in a white light seen over parts of Norway.

The submarine-based Bulava ballistic missile failed when launched from the White Sea, the Defence Ministry's press office told Itar-Tass news agency."

I was hoping for something more spectacular, but a missile test gone awry will just have to do for now.

Why are astronomers consulted about an atmospheric phenomena? Perhaps they also asked movie stars what their opinion was?

Looked like an attempted wormhole/id travel port.

A logical explanation would be a space object, possibly with a ice core, entered the atmosphere, gases from the super heated melting ice caused the object to spin as in plummeted to earth creating the spiral effect. Or something of that nature.

lnwolf41 UPDATE... Russian missle failure. Its official

No its not. I think that if these are hostile aliens then im in my bunker see ya

Could it be a wormhole? could this be a deep space 9?

lol

I think it just might be the effect radiation from space entering earths Atmosphere at the same time the magnetic pole shift making the air displaces in once concentrated source of light.

Or its swamp gas?

@Deductions: I don't think you have to worry about president Obama, he was in Oslo which is in the south of Norway while this happened in the very north. The distance is about 1000 miles.

As of what the "spiral" consists of... Well. If it's fuel, then in the best case it's just kerosene. In the worst case, it's hydrazine which is really the worst type of "dragons blood" there is. Horrible stuff.

Some sources have also claimed that the spiral is not the result of a failure at all, but is intentionally created to deflect lasers (tracking or blasting? I have no idea). In this case it could be something as innocent as plain water.

I would not think this is water unless it is at a very very high altitude. The light emissions are more likely some chemical shell decaying, like that which occurs when something 'burns up' in the atmosphere. This does not easily occur with water as it is already 'burnt'.

Hydrazine plume is a bit more difficult for me to assess.

I would not think that the density of this plum is high enough to cause significant interaction with a battle laser. Even a signalling laser should not be much affected.

High velocity heavy particles streaming out in a pattern like this could have interesting consequences to incoming projectiles however. If these particles were lead or something as heavy it would not take very many to have significant impact on incoming warheads.

The fact that the plume is very organized, uniform and therefore would seem to be spinning at very very high velocity it would seem that possibly unless designed to do so the rocket may simply break up due to centrifugal forces.

The pattern over china does appear more like a rocket gone awry as the plume is more organized. The north china incident also appears to be spinning much slower like momentum is affecting the flight path.

First, what's behind the mountain ridge?

Second, it almost looks like there's a light or force being emitted from behind that ridge.

It seems as if it's trajectory is moving but the spiral stays stationary. The article stated that it was not the Northern Lights, which I've seen a few times and agree it does not. But it does looks like a gas.

The video definitely makes the picture even more interesting.

Solar winds, maybe? It's hard to tell. It would be helpful if there were videos/pictures from another angle.

So Russian missile failure, huh? That's too bland.

If we guess what it is correctly can we win a tool?

i think it might really be aliens doing some thing ecause we cant rule them out all together

lol But there are still many explanations and if there are aliens whos to say they're doing something hostile the could be using some giant scanner of some sort

lol maybe it is some sort of reaction due to the sun and that giant hole in the ozone layer

It is raptor Jesus.

well the russians anmitted it was a failed missle test. stage 3 of a new rocket. aperently 7 out of 9 failures or something like that

If I were a soviet researcher who had just conducted a successful missile defense shield test I would also claim it was an errant rocket and we were a complete failure.

what about HAARP?
www.haarp.alaska.edu/

ITS NOT A MISSILE! For craps sake! The whips coming off of the center of that thing are HUNDREDS of miles wide! It would take a NUKE to produce that kind of energy!

It happened over 12 minutes! THOUSANDS of people in Norway caught it on their cell phone cameras!

ON TOP OF THAT, if it WERE an object re entering our atmosphere, there is no way the jet stream would allow it to be that symmetrical. The winds in the upper atmosphere are upwards to 100 MPH, which means that any gas or liquid fuel ignited in the atmosphere would appear as a giant cloud, not perfectly symmetrical whips.

We're getting closer to 2012 folks... expect more crazy crap like this.

does anyone know anything about HAARP?

Looks like another "Tunguska Event" to me.

I do not believe this is a missle or somesort of light bending technique.

People siad it was a russian missle test and that we should get over it, but the Russian military cleary said they werent conduting any military missle test in that area. Further more, i looked up test missle gone wrong and they do have some sort of a spiral shape when they go wrong, but it does not last 12min and it it is not that perfect.

The real answer is starting to come out.

1.Eathier this was planned for the arival for obama witch would susgest that high authorities will be talking about outside life.

2.This was some form of outside life eathier working working with our government or maybe jsut a sign.

3.This was a russian "secret missle" test that they didnt want anybody to know about. if this is the case, then it must be some new, very future type technology and that leaves to the question, where did they get it?

I believe the simulation is correct, but what kind of missile falls into the atmosphere from that height? ICBMs? Why does Russia have an ICBM flying high over Norway? One could draw a line from Russia to the US East Coast over Norway. Is this the dawn of a new cold war?

@Quintus --

Nice handle. That was one of mine on another forum until my political views and unbridled disdain for Republicans got me banned there...

Anyway.

Don't know if you are old enough to remember, but we used to hear all sorts of terrible stories about how the pesticides and preservatives in apples produced unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine when cooked.

Heck. It can't be all that bad if I lived through all those apple pies. Right?

I remember well all of my dad's stories from his missile and rocket days about unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and red fuming nitric acid.

@seatellite:

How do you know they're hundreds of miles wide? How do you obtain an accurate estimate based on the perspective here? They very well could be, but it's difficult to tell.

Also:
"Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, suggested that the unusual light display occurred when the missile's third stage nozzle was damaged, causing the exhaust to come out sideways and sending the missile into a spin."

That coupled with the fact that the supposed launch happened at 8a.m. means the sun was in just the right position to illuminate the particles in the sky.

Additionally, the missiles have a range of about 5000 miles, which means that they could indeed get high enough where this phenomenon could be produced.

@Risingphoenix

Because if you look at how high the phenomenon was, versus the ridge line of the mountains, it lends to say that the measurements of each whip would be the same or more that then entire ridge line of said mountains.

Even if the light was only one mile up from the mountains, each whip exceeds the length of the mountain line. Hence: hundreds of miles.

A missile could get that high, yes. But an explosion of that magnitude would have caused a cloud, burning debris, not to mention... A LOUD SOUND... if it were within our atmosphere. But if your about to say it isn't in our atmosphere than you admit the whips had to be hundreds of miles long.

seatellite-- I was thinking the same thing. It could be a "leak" yes, but a spray of fuel hundreds of miles long? I don't think so.

What easily explains this is that the display was mettallic particles.

I reference a fireworks spinner which produces much the same effect. Now if you were to consider four rockets. Two powerful rockets assuring spinning then two other smaller rockets that shoot small particles you can easily see how a spinner can shoot particles very far very fast.

The part that makes this potentially a weapon is the 15 minute duration. What failing rocket continues to spew the 'wrong direction' for 15 minutes?

However it is Ideal for a missile shield if you shot up 10 at one time overlapping. 100 such missles would provide substantial cover while someone on the other side was pummeled.

That this 15 minutes was some type of after effect is a possibility but not likely in my view for something that spewed out 100's of miles. Particle spew 100's of miles not vapors.

All in all the only thing that make sense is an advance missile shield...

I should have said, 'particles spew 100's of miles not vapors' rather than 'particle spew'.

I meant to say that the smaller rockets would be aimed opposite the larger rockets. In this way the smaller rockets would be sending out very high velocity particles.

I have a feeling that it’s LHC (CERN) as mentioned by johncos and freudianslipnslide. I've been 'eying' them (LHC) for the last 3 years, and this 'unknown' event is consistent with their work/studies. Many scientist and astrologists alike have pleaded, begged, and protested against the collider …asking LHC to stop their studies. This company is very persistent in finding out what the universe it made of. They even acknowledge that the collider 'could possibly' make small, ineffective black holes (WTF??!!), but they also acknowledge their f***ing with uncharted territory. The LHC base is VERY close to Norway. That rocket, meteor, northern light stuff is all BS!! Check out the LHC website. They are very open to sharing their findings, company info, technology, their objectives..etc..... they even show the current date(s), and results of the collider after it's been operated. (Google LHC (CERN)). Science fiction my ass. There’s no such thing anymore as science fiction. I.M.O.O..the majority of the sci-fi screen writers are prophets, they just haven’t realized it yet.

i_know,

This phenomena appears to be explainable by simple consideration of a childs toy.

I do agree with some of your statements about LHC, I share your concern. My concern is that it appears to me that there is little firm proof that the black holes will be ineffective. How can they prove that ineffective black holes even exist in nature? I suggest if they are so smart they should be tasked with making this proof prior to conducting experiments. However it seems they are more inclined to hurl insults at doubters than to offer proof.

Come on people!!!...It was a RUSSIAN Bulava missile test gone wrong!!!

The rocket started spiraling from far and as it was getting closer the spirals get bigger (It's called perspective)...

One or two of the stages malfunctioned and leaked as the rocket was spiraling... (Different color, different fuel)...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/6781106/Russian-missile-failure-sparks-UFO-frenzy-in-Norway.html

More proof

www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/10/norway.ufo.light/index.html

These do nothing to explain why this phenomena lasted 15 minutes. This is typically beyond the capability of a third stage rocket, let alone one that is spinning out of control.

I find this explanation lacking. There needs to be more proof. Including spectroscopic analysis, telemetry from Russia and evidence from the myriad of spy satellites that are around. Until then I will believe this is a missile shield test gone successful.

It's just me then that thinks the light source is emanating from behind the mountain? Look how lit up the surrounding mountain is?

While I would like the explaination to be something exotic, The photos seem to indicate the image is being projected from behind the mountain. The illusion of the light coming downward could also be the light being projected upward onto ice crystals or clouds

No follow up article to this story yet PopSci?

www.creativecompulsions.com
Knowledge is not information, it is transformation.
~ Osho ~

if it was anything poitive in any sorts its a missle faliure. If its a rocket that can shoot 3 nukes at a time.. it failed.. friendly aliens...failed missle..

Russia wouldnt admit to leaving the toilet seat up

@junkyardboy

I have heard of HAARP. There's actually an interesting book call "Angels Don't Play This HAARP" Written by Nick Begich, brother of now Alaska State Senator Begich.

www.scribd.com/doc/533366/Angels-Dont-Play-This-HAARP-Advances-in-Tesla-Technology-Manning-Begich

There's mostly speculation as to what HAARP truly does but my understanding was that it can look through mountains using the electromagnetic energy through the lithosphere and beaming energy into the earth's crust. (It's been awhile since I've read up on it so my facts are probably very watered down.)

But interesting none the less. It's also to have supposedly affected the Northern Lights in such a way it might create a different energy patterns as well.

Why do I feel like I should start Facebook searching all the Gordon Freeman's I can find?

It's like a light from certain a place of something and i don't think is a UFO or a freakin alien. I think it's just a reflection of light. I don't believe it though.

www.topunderwatercamera.com
~Giomark~

No follow up article to this story yet PopSci?

Giomark,
www.electricianoncall.com

the spiral ray or light have seen by the scientist leave them in a unknown conclusion. They assume that it might be some kind of terestal thing. Still they are on search for it.

I am surprised that I did not hear about this one. More often than not the tabloids would be claiming ET was coming for a visit or something even more dramatic like beings traveling from a parallel universe. Vivid imaginations are a wonderful thing but I am sure it was just another test.
www.massrealestatevoice.com

Yes I would like to see it projected on to a large cinema screen and hear experts opinion. Very cool and worth thinking about. Yes I too wonder why it has been kept so quiet. May there is some real about this and there the government have kept it raps from the mere mortals who cohabit on this planet.

Greg
www.litecraft.co.uk

Yes I would like to see it projected on to a large cinema screen and hear experts opinion. Very cool and worth thinking about. Yes I too wonder why it has been kept so quiet. May there is some real about this and there the government have kept it raps from the mere mortals who cohabit on this planet.

Greg
www.litecraft.co.uk