A video posted to YouTube on Thursday shows the kind of space spiral usually associated with a missile launch.
By Alan Boyle
A swirling spiral of light seen in the skies over Israel, Syria and other Middle East countries on Thursday night has been linked to a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile test.
Hundreds of Israelis jammed police hotlines with reports of the unidentified flying object, according to Ynetnews. Sighting reports came from Lebanon and even Armenia and Turkey. Versions of the video, captioned in Arabic, began appearing on YouTube.
Some of the reports that popped up on Twitter suggested that the lights in the sky were seen as a good omen for Syria's revolution. Others worried that it was a bad omen for Syria, potentially signaling the use of chemical weapons.
The actual explanation is almost certainly more mundane: The Voice of Russia reported that the country's Strategic Missile Forces conducted a test of the Topol ICBM from the Kapustin Yar firing range near Astrakhan in southern Russia on Thursday. Such a launch could theoretically be seen from areas of the Middle East and the Caucasus.
Citing a report from RIA Novosti, the radio service said the missile "accurately hit its target" in a Kazakh firing range. However, Ynetnews quoted Yigal Pat-El, chairman of the Israel Astronomical Association, as saying the missile "most likely spun out of control, and its remnants and the fuel was what people saw."
The video was reminiscent of other "space spirals" that occur when rocket stages release burning fuel as they spin. One such spiral was sighted over Norway in 2009, and turned out to be caused by a failed ballistic missile test. In that case, the missile that went awry was a Bulava ICBM, launched from a submarine in the White Sea.
Another spiral was sighted in Russia the following night and captured on video. That one was caused by a Topol missile test, but the test was reported as a success. At the time, NBC News space analyst James Oberg said he had indications that the Topol's "third-stage spin is a 'feature,' not a malfunction, and may be associated with guidance, or decoy deploy, or enhancing hardness against U.S. boost-phase antimissile weapons."
Other rocket-related UFO sightings:
- December 2009: Another 'UFO' from Russia
- January 2010: Did missile test spark Chinese UFO sightings?
- June 2010: 'UFO' over Australia was likely caused by SpaceX rocket
Tip o' the Log to Huffington Post's Craig Kanalley. Twitter updates on the sighting are using the hashtag #MideastUFO.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
