Missile or UFO? Thousands of People Witness Spinning ‘Catherine Wheel’ in the Sky

Eddie Wren
Mail Online

Thousands of people in Israel, Turkey and Jordan got the shock of their lives yesterday, as they watched a spinning ‘UFO’ performing cartwheels in the sky.

Police in these countries – as well as in Cyprus and Lebanon – were flooded with phonecalls by panicked residents, as the white, gleaming light danced high up in the atmosphere.

Theories abounded over what this could be – a failing missile test, a satellite breaking up in our atmosphere, or a visit from an alien spacecraft.

However, the mysterious light does appear to be earth-based technology, with the the spiral of light looking very similar to a Russian missile test which similarly scared people in Norway in 2009 with a light-show which seemed more Doctor Who than anything else.

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Strange spiral light seen in night skies over the Middle East likely a Russian missile launch

June 11 2012 – MIDDLE EAST – Remember the Norway Spiral back in 2009 and the Australian Spiral in 2010? On June 7, 2012 there was another swirling spiral of light, this time see in the skies over the Middle East. People across the region reported seeing a “UFO” and soon videos began showing up on YouTube. In several videos from Israel, Syria, Iran and other Middle East, the object started out looking somewhat like a comet and then started spiraling. But this missile wasn’t out of control. Alan Boyle from MSNBC’s Cosmic Log talked with space analyst Jim Oberg, who said 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.” Oberg also noted a few other “coincidences” of why this particular missile test was seen while other similar tests haven’t been viewed. If the Russians were testing the associated warhead’s ‘penaids’ — “penetration aids to frustrate tracking and targeting by U.S. anti-missile systems,” this would result in a trajectory that was higher than normal, allowing it to be seen from a greater distance. Another contributing factor, Oberg said, is “It’s June — near the time of the ‘midnight sun’ in northern latitudes. That means sunlight is streaming over the pole, throughout the night. Something in the northern sky above the atmosphere over Kazakhstan would be backlit by that sunlight.”

Perhaps a more intriguing question is, in light of escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, why are the Russians testing a third-stage rocket launch vehicle over the Middle East?