Real or fake? What is it?

[DropLogic]

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/unidentified-sky-spiral-over-norway/20rl5spu

[joeactor]

It's real... Real Old, that is!

Here's a CBS News report on it from December 2009:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/ ... 1513.shtml

Some kind of Russian Missile Test.

(still pretty cool)

[The Magic Pudding]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... 919095.htm

I haven't put my foil hat on yet.

[DropLogic]

I know it's "old" I can read....

[McQ]

I know it's "old" I can read....

Ok, then are you asking what it is?

[DropLogic]

I know it's "old" I can read....

Ok, then are you asking what it is?

Yeah, the topic of the thread is...What is it?
I know those articles say it's a rocket readjusting in space...but c'mon..it would not be that visible.  To me it honestly looks like a black hole forming...but that obviously isn't the case.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Tonight my neighbors called out excitedly to me, "Come here, there's a light in the sky!" And as I went out into the street sure enough, there was a light, reddish-orange in color, at arms length covering an arc maybe 2/3 the size of the full moon, visibly accelerating.  To their talk of, "It's a spaceship," I only said "You're right.  Vandenberg AFB [which is about 40 miles away] has just launched a rocket."

I wasn't very popular after that, for tonight, at least.

@ OP: It looks like a jet on afterburner doing a controlled spin, except that the light is very bright.  However, the video looks enhanced, so that brightness may be an artifact of processing, exaggerated to bring out the image.

[elliebean]

I know those articles say it's a rocket readjusting in space...but c'mon..it would not be that visible.

Why not? Have you observed many nighttime rocket launches?

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[DropLogic]

Ellie - Most of those pictures are time lapse.  This was live video.  Certainly the lighting could have been enhanced.  Was a pretty perfect spiral as well...not all over the sky like th 4th picture posted there.  Plus the article states that the object is in space...not taking off.

[Asmodean]

A rocket propelled object spinning out of control within the atmosphere. That one was, indeed, Russian of origin.

Tends to happen when the nav goes boom or one of the rudders gets stuck in a maximum turn position. The spiral you see actually makes a three-dimentional shape, but because the objects trajectory, it looks like a flat disc.

[elliebean]

Ellie - Most of those pictures are time lapse.  This was live video.  Certainly the lighting could have been enhanced.  Was a pretty perfect spiral as well...not all over the sky like th 4th picture posted there.  Plus the article states that the object is in space...not taking off.

I chose the images that most closely resembled what I've witnessed firsthand (30th Space Wing USAF, '93-'97), so whether it was time lapse photography or video is irrelevant to the only point of my earlier post, which was meant to demonstrate that a rocket could be (at least) that visible at night. I've seen Peacekeeper missiles light up the whole sky at once. It was very spectacular.

Why wouldn't an apparently rotating object, in a seemingly fixed position in the sky, produce a perfect spiral?

[McQ]

I know it's "old" I can read....

Ok, then are you asking what it is?

Yeah, the topic of the thread is...What is it?
I know those articles say it's a rocket readjusting in space...but c'mon..it would not be that visible.  To me it honestly looks like a black hole forming...but that obviously isn't the case.

A rocket readjusting in space would not be that visible, correct. But a rocket spiraling out of control within the atmosphere would be, if it wasn't obscured by clouds.

Also, I have to ask, since you brought it up. How many black holes have you seen? You say it looks like a black hole forming. You'd be the first person ever to have witnessed a black hole period (since they, by definition, are not visible), let alone see one forming. So to say it looks like a black hole forming really doesn't have any legitimate meaning.

It looks to me exactly like a rocket that has malfunctioned while still in the atmosphere. Russia says it was one of their Bulava missiles that failed in flight. I'm going with that explanation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34362960/

[Asmodean]

a black hole forming

...Looks uncannily like a ginormous star exploding, collapsing its innards inwards to a point. No cool rocket-like spirals at that stage... Just doom and damnation