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Thanks to Jeff Clinton for pointing out this story on altaposten.no. The quotes are [shaky] Google translations of the Norwegian web pages.
Spectacular phenomenon in
the skies over northern Norway
"In the morning rush hour, at 07.47, showed the special phenomenon in the sky. Thousands of people across northern Norway has been joined by the phenomenon, and the phone lines to both Altaposten, most other northern Norwegian media, and also the capital of the newspapers have glowed."
"The phenomenon described as a glowing ball in the sky, which rotated and "thrown out" luminous rings. The phenomenon grew rapidly in a spiral, with bright white rings towards the edges and blue, bright rings in the center. Helio was growing, until it eventually was significantly greater than both the moon and other things it will be normal to find in the sky. "Spiral" also walked across the sky, leaving a bright blue track."
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The whole thing lasted just under one minute and then the spiral in the sky appeared to collapse, leaving a dark, circular "hole" in the night sky.
"It was a very special sight, a kind of white spiral, giant, who lit up the sky. Eventually, it was a big, black ring with a bright green (aurora colored) tail behind him. In the end, only the tail again, and it could be seen in the sky about 10 minutes afterwards as well, writes Liv Reidun Tverelv in an e-mail to Altaposten. "
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Of course, as happens with every paranormal story, there are debunkers and "rational" explanations, e.g., spoilsports. One came from CBS news, claiming the portal was merely a missile gone awry:
"According to CBS News and other media, the Russian authorities confirmed on Thursday that it was a Bulava missile, which failed and ended his days in the spin far up the atmosphere Wednesday morning. Seven of the 12 test launches of the "Bulava" missile has been unsuccessful, according to the Russian Defense Ministry."
A reader, Anders, offered up a more scientific explanation:
"Posted by Anders Olav Bjørkavåg 09/12/2009 18:54:13
"This fun lysfenomenet NOK has an electrical origin. Discharges in plasma organizes itself as "Birkeland Cables" and can therefore lead the electric charge over large distances. These are configured as coils of cables - "tornado shape" if you will. At low power, these are invisible. Increases energy intensity, it begins to glow as the fluorescent and the Northern Lights. With increasing intensity, these self-organized wires push themselves further along in what is called z-pinch effect. This causes a further konsentrereing of electrical energy and a get-glowing plasma arc (as in lightning and sparks). They organize themselves again often in special formations where some typeiske varieties are precisely the spiral shape (Galaxy Form) and ring structure (such as some planetary nebula).
"The reason that meterologer and astronomers do not recognize this right away is that they are not trained in plasma physics. Plasma Physicists will recognize phenomena from plasma (electricity) experiments in the labs and in the simulations."
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