Tenth Anniversary -- The 'Norway Spiral' Spectacle

Its place in history is assured as the start of mass sightings of strange spirals in the sky, captured on pocketcams and cell phones and then near-instantaneously shared worldwide over the internet. Filtering out what has become 'routine' spaceflight events [launch, on-orbit thrusting and fuel dumping, reentry fireballs, etc] from more interesting and even more baffling apparitions remains a challenge -- and continued public reporting is more important than ever.

Here's my tenth anniversary article describing why I am persuaded the Norway event was a missile. Counter-arguments and counter-evidence would be very useful to the continuation of these studies.

www.astronautix.com...



Mod Edit: All Caps – Please Review This Link.

a reply to: JimOberg

Well done article Jim!

the sociological/cultural puzzle is more amorphous and daunting.

Naw...not when you consider how many knuckleheads believe our planet is "flat" and that man has never been in space.

a reply to: JimOberg

Yeah Jim I would say it was a missile also...

An alien missile

a reply to: ManyMasks

Not a very good one if it was. Was it?

originally posted by: oldcarpy
a reply to: ManyMasks

Not a very good one if it was. Was it?

That development program was the most trouble-plagued in post-Soviet Russian history. Heads rolled -- literally [grin].

Good article and very elaborate in how this phenomenon was explained. Spectacular images, too.

Excellent, wonderfully presented article, Jim.

It serves a dual purpose of carefully explaining the science behind the incident, and also presenting a prescient sociological picture of how quickly and forcefully the internet can promote a more fantastical explanation that WILLINGLY ignores the science behind the event - a Three Monkeys saga that avoids Seeing, Hearing or Speaking about reality.

Such enthusiastic dismissals of Facts is understandable, though, considering the massive romantic edge (and desire to Believe) that ufology possesses and promotes.

(Roswell is an early example, although the notion of ET was non-existent during the course of Roswell's time in the 1947 sun. A few weeks earlier, Ken Arnold had proposed foreign Cold War spy planes, and sure enough Mac Brazel and Jesse Marcel were convinced they'd retrieved same; indeed, finding a contemporary ET reference for Roswell is a fun but ultimately fruitless search. The ET theory had to wait in a queue - in Roswell's case a thirty-year wait!)

a reply to: JimOberg



That was a weird event , strange how quick a decade goes by

I am very skeptical it was a Russian ICBM.

I believe that because of the great distance from the launch site, and the fact the missile was going the other direction - indicate that it would have been well below the horizon and so not visible.

If it was a Russian ICBM than why isn't Norway sharing pics like this every time a rocket test occurs?

Why weren't people in Sweden or Finland sharing even better bigger closer up pics?

Yeah, this wasn't a Russian ICBM guys. This was something else entirely.

Still a fascinating topic!

I did an amature rendering of the interpretation i assumed ten years ago:

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

I see it completely opposite.

Nearly everyone, except me I guess, believed the MSM excuse for this.

I believe that accepting the official story here is willing ignorance, and I do not consider what is being called "the science/facts" on this by that side as actual facts or science and that a lot of misinterpretation, convolution, twisting, and ignorance is necessary to believe the official story.

Really all I had to do was question it.

I think people just automatically accept any claim or opinion they already agreed with.

They love to call their subjective interpretation of data, and selective views as "Science and Facts", but really I see through all the gloss and glitter. You're all full of # and haven't a clue. Oh well, I have more pressing matters to attend...

Nice share
a reply to: JimOberg
I always wondered about the moon impact date and the spiral two months later to the date.

NASA crashed the rocket and a satellite into the moon's surface on Friday morning in a $79 million mission. Minutes before its impact, the satellite guided a rocket into the Cabeus crater in an effort to kick up enough dust to help the LCROSS find whether there is any water in the moon's soil.Oct 9, 2009

It was one of those moments I realized odd things can happen that most of society may ignore.

a reply to: JimOberg

I will read the whole PDF later, and if you cannot convince me I have it all wrong I'll come and gift you a debate.

I'll focus specifically on your claims and do this organized and succinctly so it'll be easy for everyone to follow.

Gimme a day or something to get time for this.

a reply to: JimOberg


I Agree . Most likely a Russian Ballistic Missile Test .

originally posted by: muzzleflash
I am very skeptical it was a Russian ICBM.

I believe that because of the great distance from the launch site, and the fact the missile was going the other direction - indicate that it would have been well below the horizon and so not visible.

If it was a Russian ICBM than why isn't Norway sharing pics like this every time a rocket test occurs?

Why weren't people in Sweden or Finland sharing even better bigger closer up pics?

Yeah, this wasn't a Russian ICBM guys. This was something else entirely.

So , aliens come to Earth to test their ICBMs
Which fail and begin spinning.
Amazing.

a reply to: Gothmog

Don't think he said that.
People are quick to come up with an answer when they don't know, is there anything else that compares to it? its a mystery, like ball lightning.
So any hypothesis is possible, we are not omniscient. And new discoveries will continue to be found. My hypothesis is that its a wormhole to another dimension, which is within the realms of our scientific understanding. My alien missile post was a joke.

a reply to: ManyMasks

I don't know if wormholes are even possible, it's all based on theories.

I'm not sure who was behind the spiral event but I think it was a NATO test and I find it exceptionally frustrating that the Russians took credit (although I believe their motives were to calm the public asap, despite their own internal confusion, and I think NATO heads spoke with Russian heads and agreed on their "story" for whatever reasons despite all the misinfo floating around).

I think the technology test was NATO, as surprising as that sounds.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Yeah I know but it would be awesome if it was a wormhole and remember today's science fiction is often tomorrows science fact, and I must admit I'm a bit of a dreamer and know my explanation is out there but when I have no clue about the answer its more fun for me if I imagine something like this.
If I'm being totally serious the best explanation would probably be that it is that it's some secret technology or natural phenomenon that is unknown.
Although a wormhole would come under the latter.
I wonder what we assumed what the aurora borealis was before we had a better understanding of it.
Then again it may be a technology that somehow interacted with the northern lights to create that effect...

a reply to: JimOberg


This was obviously a missile test gone wrong. There isn't much else to say about it.

a reply to: Helious
That's like the most unscientific statement you can make... Imagine if copernicus thought like that.