Russia has just completed a major nuclear exercise, testing its land, sea and air weapons from all four corners of the continent-spanning nation. / Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.
IT appeared over the skies of Siberia on Friday.
A deeply unsettling pale-blue glowing orb.
Against a sparkling, star-filled backdrop washed with the green hues of the northern lights - it was a spectacular sight.
It was captured by photographers scattered across a large swath of Siberia - all outon the clear night to capture the enticing glow of the pulsing aurora borealis.
"At first I was taken aback for a few minutes, not understanding what was happening," one of these photographers, Sergey Anisimov, told The Siberian Times.
"The glowing ball rose from behind the trees and moved in my direction."
The pulsing orb moved overhead, and eventually vanished.
"Kids walking in the yard emotionally began to tell me about an unusual phenomenon, using the words 'aliens', 'the portal to another dimension' and the like ..." Anisimov said.
Another declared: "It's a gap in the space-time continuum."
Turns out, none of the above accurately reports what they saw.
EARTH-SHATTERING REALITY
Russia's Ministry of Defence at the weekend declared President Vladimir Putin had that night personally controlled the launch of a series of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles.
These rose into the skies from the Arctic Ocean's Barents Sea, the Okhotsk Sea north of Japan, and the Plestek Cosmodrome in the west.
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo / AP
The glowing orb was actually the rocket plume from a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fired from Plestek. It was burning high as it crossed Siberia towards the Kura weapons testing range in Russia's far east.
Its slowly dissipating exhaust - being so high above the atmosphere - captured a ghostly reflection of the Sun's rays shortly after sunset below.
"Our intuition fails when we see the behaviour of gas in space where there's not enough air to contain it," Smithsonian Centre astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told National Geographic. "The rocket exhaust expands in a big bubble tens to hundreds of miles across ... If the sunlight catches it just right, that bubble can be visible."
