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courtesy of Gizmodo

Over the skies over Norway, a (then)strange spiral formation freaks out all who see it. We’re not meaning to put words in people’s mouths but it’d sure freak us out. Turns out the mysterious spiral isn’t an alien portal, Thor crossing over to Midgard, or Mighty Orbots returning from galactic patrolling. Those in the know, including our favorite Bad Astronomer Phil Plait , soon put all our worries, and imaginations, at ease.

Norwegian astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard says it’s 99.9% safe to say that it’s a rocket out of control, while some newspapers and TV channels are quoting Russian military sources, confirming that this is a failed Bulava missile launched from a nuclear submarine in the White Sea.

The Norwegian defense has confirmed that, even while they have not admitted the failure, the Russian Navy alerted them about the tests prior to the giant spiral appearing in the skies

You Tube is littered with on-the-scene videos like the one below.

Is it just us or are the Russians cornering the market on strange video happenings? Whether is a few grand in vodka being taken out in a warehouse or some drunk guy falling down a manhole or missiles going tits-up publicly in the Norwegian sky. We think Russia’s doing its damnedest to become a poor man’s Japan. All they need now are cute, drunken robots fighting.

The following video explains things in technical terms. The unrelated text below that is a bit of Phil Plait’s reaction to what was going on.

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.

All of this makes for another entry into Our Strange Sky.

(via @sevendaggers, the escapist, barent observer, gizmodo:1,2)

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