Posted on 06/20/2022 8:08:37 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Alasdair Burns, a stargazing guide on Stewart Island/Rakiura, received a text from a friend: go outside and look at the sky. “As soon as we actually went outside, it was very obvious what it was he was referring to,” Burns said.
He saw a huge, blue spiral of light amid the darkness. “It looked like an enormous spiral galaxy, just hanging there in the sky, and slowly just drifting across,” Burns said.
A spiral of blue lights as seen from Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand, on Sunday. Theories on social media about its origins ranged from aliens to foreign rockets to commercial displays.
Photograph: Alasdair Burns/Twinkle Dark Sky Tours
The country’s stargazing and amateur astronomy social media groups lit up with people posting photographs and questions about the phenomenon, which was visible from most of the South Island. Theories abounded – from UFOs to foreign rockets to commercial light displays.
The reality was likely a little more prosaic, said Prof Richard Easther, a physicist at Auckland University...Easther said the rocket in question was likely the Globalstar launch from SpaceX, which the company sent into low-earth orbit off Cape Canaveral in Florida on Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
New Zealand is a beautiful country. Hope it comes to its senses soon.
Last summer I saw a bright orange-red light hanging in the night sky, I was able to watch it very slowly move. It was almost as large as the full moon.
I eventually figured it out, it was an Osprey aircraft with the rotor blade LED turned on. They do that so other Ospreys can follow in formation. Learned something new but it was exciting at the time. Thought I finally got to see a UFO.
I don’t know enough science to understand how a missile can cause this phenomenon. Is it reacting with the ionosphere?
Vapors being backlit by an over-the-horizon Sun.
Here is a brief explaination:
I don’t know if the Osprey has led lights on its blade, but I have seen static electricity discharge on the ends of helicopter blades, Huey, Chinook, Cobra, Blackhawks, Apaches, really wicked looking, looked like large moving circles of electricity. Under night-vision goggles it was like an electrical fireworks show.
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