@icelandbob Actually, you may be on to something. I haven't seen Oda here or on AIM since this happened. Her powers have finally manifested, and we are only left to wonder if she will use them for good or evil
It's absolutely bizarre that a missile can create such a massive and freakishly weird thing like that. The videos don't look that strange, but the thing looks massive in that pic. It looks more like they were trying to open a wormhole. And yeah, it brings to mind a couple of images from the first pages of Doug Rushkoff's eXoriare comic aswell.
@0neiromancer: Interesting arguments, though some of them seem dodgy. For instance, his horizon calculation actually tells you how high up you'd have to be to see the launch site from Norway - all the photos I've seen have the spiral fading off into the distance long before you see the tail headed down to earth anyway. With the possibility of a relatively low flightpath in mind, it's not so surprising that the other two countries wouldn't see it pass over if it didn't do so in a well-populated area (not that I've checked the population density, there could be a city there for all I know). The fact that it would be 90 degrees off target is interesting though.