UFO event in Norway

[2012 Countdown]

The blue spiral appears larger as it approaches the viewer. It would be counterintuitive to assume that it appeared larger the further away from you it got.

That's true, but if whatever was leaking to produce the blue spiral got progressively worse then the sprial would appear to expand even as it was going away from you.

In regard to our position and orientation of the photos, I am seeing it as you are too BPH. Blue swirly is going away from us in these photos...



Again though, the 'Blue' seems to travel away from us for some distance, and then the main swirl is created in an extremely lateral/perpendicular/2D/planar fashion.

[barracuda]

I think, Countdown, in order to buttress that idea, you'd have to show me at least one example, anywhere, in which an object appears larger as it travels rapidly away from the viewer. I can't think of one.

Also, the slight downward arc of the blue spiral indicates it is more likely to be losing energy rather than increasing as it culminates in the second spiral.

[Penguin]

This was from a known Bulava test in 2005, I posted the link earlier on page 11. Notice the blue plume is pretty much similar in colour...Also lighting conditions (early morning just like now too - around 7.20) seem similar...
This image was shot over Finland back then.

http://www.ursa.fi/ursa/jaostot/tekokuu ... 51221.html
In all of those photos, its the sun just barely shining over the horizon lighting the rocket exhaust (I mean, the sun has not actually risen, but is only lighting the upper part of the atmosphere) - note that these are of the same type that this one supposedly was.

Most interesting, in any case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloud also interesting, related...

I also agree with Nordic, on the professionalism of the spiral photo - I have also shot night photos with a good film camera, with long exposures. You tend to take several ones to ensure that the exposure and framing are right in the shots...

[brainpanhandler]

But in order for that assumption to make sense, you have to add information that you do not actually possess (worsening leakage), something which I'd tend to advise against in this situation.

I tend to agree except that I don't think it is really such a stretch to imagine that the leakage that created the blue spiral was not all instantaneous nor perfectly consistent.

There are already enough unknown variables at work here that reversing the normal understanding of the rules of visual perspective seems to be a leap not worth taking unless there is some great benefit in doing so, which, as yet, I don't really see.

Agreed. The only compelling reason I've come up with is that the russians would launch this thing away from populated areas and not toward them. I mean after all, apparently the only failsafe with these things is to blow them up and I'm sure they would like to avoid the possibility of missile debris raining down on northern sweden and norway. And really either way, whether the presumed missile heading toward or away from the observer the important point is that a funnel would explain the apparent planar nature of the white spiral.

I don't see any reason whatsoever to assume the blue spiral is in front of the white one.

Aside from the rules of perspective you mention I don't see any reason to assume it's behind it either. I'll give you a draw between the perspective and the russians not being nuts arguments.

I think were it not for the lucky timing and position of this thing, with the sun hidden behind the horizon, yet lighting it up from behind, the display would obviously have far less impressive.

Not to mention the fact that as Nordic says the rex features photo is probably a few seconds long which quite possibly records a lot more detail than would be visible with the naked eye.

[2012 Countdown]

I think, Countdown, in order to buttress that idea, you'd have to show me at least one example, anywhere, in which an object appears larger as it travels rapidly away from the viewer. I can't think of one.

Also, the slight downward arc of the blue spiral indicates it is more likely to be losing energy rather than increasing as it culminates in the second spiral.

BPH made the counterpoints I might make...swirly losing organization, expanding as it travels...also shooting a missile toward us/settlements would seem provocative to say the least...but I can also see your point as well. I guess we will suspend judgement for now.

[Penguin]

They have shot missiles in a similar general direction for decades...
It has never been a problem for them, before. The image above of the 2005 Bulava test is further south than this recent event (at Syöte, finnish Lapland).

[brainpanhandler]

what direction?

[Peregrine]

Probably one of the awesomest threads Ive read here.

Agreed.

[barracuda]

The only compelling reason I've come up with is that the russians would launch this thing away from populated areas and not toward them. I mean after all, apparently the only failsafe with these things is to blow them up and I'm sure they would like to avoid the possibility of missile debris raining down on northern sweden and norway.

This is probably a fine opportunity for me to reiterate the obvious: if we are thinking along the lines of a failed missile test, the missile was undoubtably out of control, and so to assume that it was originally pointed towards a populated region does not really take this into account. It may have originally been pointed anywhere.

[Penguin]

what direction?

From the White Sea, over Finland, Sweden and Norway. Like the 2005 launch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sea

"In the modern era it became an important Soviet naval and submarine base. The White Sea-Baltic Canal connects the White Sea with the Baltic Sea.

The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be internal waters of Russia.

There are four main bays and gulfs in the White Sea. From west to east, they are the Kandalaksha Gulf, the Onega Bay, the Dvina Bay, and the Mezen Bay."

[brainpanhandler]

And to get back to you psynapz,

Oh, no. You guys are so smart! You've lost me now! Is there a way to explain this in "For Dummies" terminology so I can follow?

Sure, that thing seems more like a light show than a rocket spinning out of control until it runs out of fuel, despite fascinating animations to the contrary. It's too perfect-looking to be something so chaotic, and besides it seems to be more like a projection from some kind of big projector on the other side of that mountain range, like from the antenna station just on the other side which, like several sites around the western world, is designed to heat the upper atmosphere with radio waves for both scientific and doomsday-device research. I just presented compelling evidence that the heater antennas were, in fact, running at the time the spiral lights appeared, though for way longer than it appeared.

You sound pretty certain here. At that point no one, as you admit, knew what mountain range that was in the rex features image and I didn't even know what photo you were referring to anyway as you didn't specify. Hence my questions.

The eiscat facility you reference is roughly 100 miles southwest of sjkervoy where I believe the rex features photo was taken as well as the other photos from the same location and probably the same photographer. SInce that photo is taken facing east/southeast the eiscat facility cannot be behind those mountains which has been pretty conclusively porved to be the sawback mountains. Whether the mountains I point to in the google maps image I posted where I labeled them are actually the sawback mountains or not is open to debate.

[brainpanhandler]

what direction?

From the White Sea, over Finland, Sweden and Norway. Like the 2005 launch.

Well that weighs in your favor cuda.

[brainpanhandler]

The only compelling reason I've come up with is that the russians would launch this thing away from populated areas and not toward them. I mean after all, apparently the only failsafe with these things is to blow them up and I'm sure they would like to avoid the possibility of missile debris raining down on northern sweden and norway.

This is probably a fine opportunity for me to reiterate the obvious: if we are thinking along the lines of a failed missile test, the missile was undoubtably out of control, and so to assume that it was originally pointed towards a populated region does not really take this into account. It may have originally been pointed anywhere.

Well yeah, but it's not like the trajectory is complete chaos. So it would have had to have gone haywire at the get go and then remained relatively consistent if it was originally intended to travel northeast and not southwest from the white sea.

[justdrew]

any estimate of the seconds/minutes/degrees of arc it covers?

[MacCruiskeen]

The only compelling reason I've come up with is that the russians would launch this thing away from populated areas and not toward them. I mean after all, apparently the only failsafe with these things is to blow them up and I'm sure they would like to avoid the possibility of missile debris raining down on northern sweden and norway.

This is probably a fine opportunity for me to reiterate the obvious: if we are thinking along the lines of a failed missile test, the missile was undoubtably out of control, and so to assume that it was originally pointed towards a populated region does not really take this into account. It may have originally been pointed anywhere.

If a missile were to go so radically out of control as to change direction substantially, is it plausible that it would end up creating such a perfectly symmetrical display?

I'm sure [the Russians] would like to avoid the possibility of missile debris raining down on northern sweden and norway.

Yes. Quite apart from any possible concerns about damage to humans and/or "the environment", you'd certainly expect a Great Power testing unreliable new weapons to avoid - whenever possible - allowing that top-secret multi-million-dollar military technology to land on foreign territory.

This is not to doubt Penguin's information about previous Russian missile tests that appear to have taken precisely that risk. I just mean: they'd surely prefer not to.

Unless, of course, they were positively intending to make a display.