A unique phenomenon was seen in the Alaskan night sky early Saturday, leaving residents of the far north speechless.
The strange phenomenon consists of a glowing spiral contrasting with an aurora borealis.
Even more amazing: it moved.
“It just kept getting bigger,” photographer Todd Salat told the Anchorage Daily News, adding that five minutes later, the “magnificent work of art in the sky” was roughly directly overhead.
death lettuce | AuroraHunter.com
“I had absolutely no idea what it was … I would say it might be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Hundreds of miles to the northeast, in the arctic community of Kotzebue, midwife Elizabeth Withnall saw something similar.
“We are seeing a lot of very unusual phenomena in the far north skies,” Ms Withnall told the weekly.
Elizabeth Whitnall | Facebook
“I saw fog arcs and rainbows around the moon. So I told myself there was something strange in the sky and I didn’t know what it was, but it was quite fascinating,” she added.
According to Don Hampton, a professor at the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, this “strange thing” turns out to be man-made and “appears to be due to an engine exhaust from a SpaceX Transporter-7 rocket mission that landed on Falcon 9 about three.” hours earlier in California,” he explains.
The mission lifted off from Vandenberg Space Base north of Los Angeles just before midnight on Friday, the New York Post reports.
“The water vapor in the second stage exhaust freezes and catches the sunlight at high altitudes, making it shine and creating this spiral galaxy… It made that passage through Alaska and amazed many night watchers,” said specialist Email.
Although the logical explanation has certainly reassured many residents of the far north, it seems that the two local photographers were happy to be caught up in this sudden phenomenon.
“Believe me, at first I was totally confused… and I enjoyed that feeling of a stranger,” Mr. Salat wrote on Facebook.
“Seriously Elon? You want to spoil my northern lights? I was hoping a spaceship would land and aliens would come out,” Ms. Withnall said.