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2009 Norwegian spiral anomaly

Aerial phenomenon

2009 Norwegian spiral anomaly

Aerial phenomenon

The anomaly.

The Norwegian spiral anomaly of 2009 (, "the spiral-form light pattern", det spiralformede lysfenomenet, "the spiral-form light phenomenon") was a light phenomenon that appeared in the night sky over Norway in the morning of 9 December 2009. It was visible from, and photographed from, northern Norway and Sweden. The spiral consisted of a blue beam of light with a greyish spiral emanating from one end of it. The light could be seen in all of Trøndelag to the south (the two red counties on the map to the right) and all across the three northern counties which compose Northern Norway, as well as from Northern Sweden and it lasted for 10 minutes. A similar, though less spectacular event had also occurred in Norway the month before. Both events had visual features of failed flights of Russian RSM-56 Bulava SLBMs, and the Russian Defence Ministry said shortly after that such an event had taken place on 9 December.

Initial speculations

Hundreds of calls flooded the Norwegian Meteorological Institute as residents wanted to know what they were seeing. Norwegian celebrity astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard pointed out that the area over which the light had been observed was exceptionally large, covering all of Northern Norway and Trøndelag. It was also suggested that it could have been a rare, never-before-seen Northern Lights variant.

UFO enthusiasts immediately began speculating whether the aerial light display could be evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, proposing among other things that it could be a wormhole opening up, or somehow was linked to the recent high-energy experiments undertaken at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

Ballistic missile test

On 10 December 2009, the Russian Defence Ministry announced that a Bulava missile test had failed. According to a spokesman, "The missile's first two stages worked as normal, but there was a technical malfunction at the next third stage of the trajectory." Russian defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer stated to AFP that "such lights and clouds appear from time to time when a missile fails in the upper layers of the atmosphere and have been reported before ... At least this failed test made some nice fireworks for the Norwegians." Prior to the Russian statement, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had already 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.

References

References

  1. Linder, Alexander. (9 December 2009). "Märkligt ljussken över Kiruna". [[Norrländska Socialdemokraten]].
  2. "Russisk rakettsmell synlig i hele Nord-Norge".
  3. "Norway Spiral".
  4. (9 December 2009). "Vet ikke hva den mystiske kjempespiralen er". [[Verdens Gang]].
  5. (9 December 2009). "Strange light in Norwegian sky sparks mystery". The Daily Telegraph.
  6. Andreas Grimsæth. (3 November 2009). "Mystisk lys var russisk rakett". yr.no.
  7. (10 December 2009). "Strange 'Norway spiral' likely an out-of-control missile". [[New Scientist]].
  8. (10 December 2009). "Norway spiral: A rocket scientist explains the mystery". [[The Christian Science Monitor]].
  9. (10 December 2009). "Norway wormhole is First Contact, claim UFO watchers". [[news.com.au]].
  10. [[Clara Moskowitz]], [https://web.archive.org/web/20131024163334/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34362960/ 'Russia admits missile caused UFO lights']. ''MSNBC News'', 10 December 2009.
  11. [http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/6574426 UFO frenzy was Russian missile failure] {{Webarchive. link. (15 December 2009 , Yahoo!7 News)
Info: Wikipedia Source

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