Mysterious ribbon of blue light appears over Sweden

A mysterious ribbon of blue light appeared over Abisko, Sweden during a G1 – Minor geomagnetic storm on November 3, 2022.

The phenomenon, which seems to defy orthodox aurora physics, might be a previously unrecognized form of Northern Lights, Dr. Tony Phillips of the SpaceWeather reports.¹

However, Chad Blakley, the director of Lights over Lapland, who obviously witnessed a lot of auroras in his life, said it didn’t look like any auroras he has ever seen before.

Miquel Such, one of the Lights over Lapland tour guides, video-recorded the phenomenon:

The phenomenon appeared in webcams at 16:16 UTC and then rapidly brightened to naked-eye visibility before sinking below the horizon 30 minutes later. The whole time, regular green auroras danced around and seemingly in front of it, Phillips notes.

“It looks really odd if it’s aurora,” Space physicist Toshi Nishimura of Boston University said after watching the video.

“One auroral arc shouldn’t cut across another auroral arc without disturbing it, so it’s hard to explain this from an auroral physics point of view.”

One of the possible reasons behind this phenomenon is ICBM firing exercise, known to produce displays like this, but no one there saw a rocket and multiple witnesses agree that nothing streaked across the sky before the blue band appeared.

Any photographers who caught the phenomenon are encouraged to submit their images to SpaceWeather as photos from different locations may help determine the height of the emission. If anyone saw a rocket, please contact Dr. Tony Phillips (spaceweather.com).

References:

¹ Mysterious blue ‘auroras’ over Sweden – November 3, 2022 – SpaceWeather.com

Featured image credit: Lights Over Lapland (stillshot)