What's up over Norway

Yesterday  morning in Norway, people saw a strange and still-unexplained phenomenon.

Eye-witness Nick Banbury of Harstad reports:
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"We are used to seeing lots of auroras here in Arctic Norway, but on my way to work this morning I saw something completely unexpected.
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Between 7:50 and 8:00 a.m. local time, there was a strange light in the sky," shown here in a photo taken by Jan Petter:
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"It consisted initially of a green beam of light similar in colour to the aurora with a mysterious rotating spiral at one end," continues Banbury.
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"This spiral then got bigger and bigger until it turned into a huge halo in the sky with the green beam extending down to the earth.
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According to the press, this could be seen all over Northern Norway and must therefore have been very high up in the atmosphere to be seen hundreds of km apart."
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"[A popular] suggestion at the moment is that it was a rocket shot up by a Russian submarine in the white sea, but the Russians deny this apparently.
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A big mystery indeed!"
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Taken from Space weather

As an aside comment
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Very often green lights or beams are associated with  UFO's
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Before you dismiss this idea be aware that the Russians spent a large amount of time and money investigating such phenomena during the era of the Soviet Union
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They have as a result more knowledge on this subject than most others
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They have also a more open mind as many confirmed sightings are in their dossiers
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This is how we can say this about green beams from lights or objects in the sky
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Also be aware that these beams are not good news and one should most certainly stay out of the beam

Although not fashionable at the moment UFO's continue to be seen by many in the former Soviet Union, which is not surprising given that this area constitutes more than a fith of the world's surface area