Norway Spiral How a Missile Test Could be Confused With a UFO

It was on the news, the Norwegian Spiral... spooooky! Well a Norwegian Military Commander said, "It was just a Russian missile trace", I for one believe it was. People all over the net have raised the gauntlet and are shouting in blogs and on UFO hot-spots about how missiles don't make spirals in the sky and that it was a UFO. Well I say hogwash. I grew up in Southern California not far from Vandenburg AFB and three times in my life I've seen missile test launches. Once in the late 80's, another time in 1993, and once again in 1998. All of these were Miniotaur Missile tests. They are strange to behold and do make one wax with wonderment and awe and it is understanding that if people had never seen one they might think it was a UFO.

A missile or rocket has three phases of flight:... boost, ballistic, and reentry. It is controlled by a preprogrammed on-board guidance system computer that is linked to a gyro system. During the first or booster stage the rocket is shooting up from the ground at an angular trajectory towards it's intended target and is gaining altitude. During the ballistic phase the gyro system takes control of the guidance and aims the missile towards the target. The last phase after the other two stages have been exhausted and released is reentry where the missiles payload package is activated and then delivered to the target.

During the second phase of the rockets burn there can be problems with the gyro guidance system not working correctly. This would cause the rocket to spin as it was boosting in the high upper atmosphere to its target. Looking at the missiles exhaust ploom from behind would make it seem to produce a spiral of glowing light which is created by the solid fuel the rocket is burning into gas. This ploom is then being lit up by refracting sunlight over the horizon of the Earth and the witnesses can see a fantastic areal light show. It really is beautiful to behold.