On Saturday, a photographer situated in the southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska, managed to capture an extraordinary sight in the night sky – a vivid, spiral-shaped object surrounded by the northern lights’ aurora.

What made the sudden appearance even more peculiar was that it was in motion, the New York Post reported.

As the object grew in size, the photographer, Todd Salat, recounted to the Anchorage Daily News that it transformed into a “beautiful piece of art in the sky” directly overhead in just five minutes.

Salat admitted to having “absolutely no idea” what the phenomenon was, and described it as perhaps the most unusual sight he had ever witnessed.

In the distant Arctic town of Kotzebue, hundreds of miles northeast, midwife Elizabeth Withnall also reported seeing a comparable occurrence.

According to Don Hampton, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, the “weird thing” witnessed by Withnall in the skies over Kotzebue was a man-made phenomenon, likely to be rocket engine exhaust from a SpaceX Transporter-7 mission launched about three hours earlier in California.

Withnall acknowledged that the far north region frequently sees unusual phenomena in the sky, including fog bows and rainbows around the moon.

She found the sighting to be fascinating despite not knowing what it was at the time, as reported by the New York Post.

Written by staff