A bright spiralling light, believed by astronomers to be a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, was spotted in skies across Australia’s east coast just before dawn last Saturday, sparking a UFO frenzy.
Described by some witnesses as a “lollipop-type swirl”, the cloud of light was seen over the country’s three easternmost provinces – New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory – shortly before sunrise. “It had a distinct bright centre, much like a bright star … (with) trails spiralling and fattening out from it,” Canberra resident James Butcher told broadcaster ABC of the spectacle, which he said lasted two or three minutes.
Other witnesses likened the spectacular phenomenon, footage of which was quick to hit the Internet, to a “huge revolving moon” with a swirl in the middle, or an illuminated cloud moving high and fast above the horizon.
“It certainly had that lollipop-type swirl … but it was travelling low and fairly fast, and as it went past me and I looked up, it looked like a row of lights, maybe four lights,” one Brisbane resident said.
However, despite claims, the new Falcon 9 rocket launched by SpaceX created the phenomenon.
The Space Exploration Technologies company is a California-based spaceflight company led by millionaire PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. In an e-mail he sent to SPACE.com he said:
“I heard people in Australia thought UFOs were visiting. The venting of propellants, which is done to ensure that an overpressure event doesn’t produce orbital debris, created a temporary halo which caught the sun at just the right angle for a great view from Australia. I thought the pictures looked really cool.”
ABC reported that professional skywatchers quickly suggested that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket might be the source of the sky spiral. Geoffrey Whyatt of the Sydney Observatory said:
“The first I saw of the spirals was last year when they were reported in Norway and then a few days later in Russia. The Norway one was very spectacular because of its symmetrical appearance. But the one this morning and the one in Russia bear a striking similarity of being the same effects from a rocket trying to be controlled or adjusted. The fact that you’ve got the rotation, the spiral effect, is very reminiscent of the much widely reported sightings from Norway and Russia last year, which both turned out to be a Bulava missile which was being adjusted in its orbit. So possibly a rocket, I would say, having some sort of gyroscopic stability rocket fired on its side.”
The Bulava missile spiral occurred in December 2009 and set off a flurry of UFO sighting reports. Picture below.
Norwegians had front-row seats for a bizarre light show: a giant spiral with a green-blue streak trailing down to the horizon which was caused by a Russian missile that failed just after launch.
The launch of the privately owned Falcon 9 test rocket marked a milestone for the space industry in the race to develop commercial carriers capable of ferrying cargo and astronauts to the orbiting International Space Station.
View more photos of the Australian Spiral here.
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