A giant light spiral in the sky has stunned onlookers in Norway, raising fears of an alien attack and forcing scientists to admit they are baffled by the phenomenon.
The unprecedented display could be seen for hundreds of kilometres in the dark morning sky, prompting thousands of Norwegians to bombard local media with reports of sightings.
Totto Eriksen was driving his daughter to school in the northern town of Tromso when he saw a light that "spun and exploded in the sky".
"It looked like a rocket that spun around and around and then went diagonally across the heavens," he was quoted by The Sun as saying.
"People just stopped and stared … it was like something out of a Hollywood movie."
Top astronomer Knut Jorgen Roed Odegaard said he had never seen anything like it before.
"My first thought was that it was a fireball meteor but it lasted too long," he said.
"I rang the air traffic control tower in Tromse (and) they said it was over in two minutes … that is far too long to be an astronomical phenomenon."
He added that the event was not related to aurora borealis — the famous northern lights — and speculated that the light could have been an out-of-control rocket fired out of neighbouring Russia.
This theory has been embraced by other experts, although Russian authorities strongly deny any involvement.
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