A spiraling vortex of light and smoke had people from Istanbul to Tehran up-in-arms last night, jamming police hotlines with calls and demands for answers.
Alan Boyle at MSNBC did a bit of a roundup of all the reports from across the region and says UFO was a common guess, but others took the heavenly display as a divine omen.
Some people on Twitter said it meant good things for the Syrian revolution, while others claimed the opposite and that the display signaled impending chemical weapon attacks.
It turned out it was a Russian test of its Topol ICBM from an air base in the southern part of the country.
Kremlin officials claim the test was a complete success, while Boyle cites a report from RIA Novosti that says the spiral formations are more likely fuel remains as the rocket spun out of control.
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