2009 Norwegian spiral anomaly

The Norwegian spiral anomaly of 2009 (Norwegian: det spiralformede lysmønsteret, "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. According to sources, it looked like a blue light coming from behind a mountain, stopping in mid-air, and starting to spiral outwards. 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.