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Rocket Launch Sighting (Stockholm Area; August 2020)

Ringo

I like to not get involved in these matters
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Saturday 1st August, around 14.30 Swedish time, my wife and two kids witnessed a large rocket ascending into the sky. They were driving through Krusboda and had just turned off on the road towards Alby Nature reserve. It was a clear, bright blue sky. My son saw it first, then my daughter and then my wife briefly (as she was driving).

He said it was lifting off, projecting lots anf lots of white smoke. My son said that it had stabilising fins but seemed to be rotating. They said it had a red nose cone but was predominantly white with some sort of pattern on it.

My wife didn't see it until it was higher in the sky but she estimates now that it was 4 or 5 cm high in her field of vision. She estimated it to be very large. She thought is big enough to hold persons/people but she saw it so briefly that she couldn't be sure. She also said that it was travelling stright up and producing lots of white smoke.

They mentioned it to me when I got back from the UK. I have searched online but found no articles or mentions of it. Just to point out that there are no lauch facilities in Stockholm (that the public is aware of). They only lost sight of it when they turned a corner and trees obscured their view.

It may have been a hobby rocket but it sounds massive.
 
Saturday 1st August, around 14.30 Swedish time, my wife and two kids witnessed a large rocket ascending into the sky. They were driving through Krusboda and had just turned off on the road towards Alby Nature reserve. It was a clear, bright blue sky. My son saw it first, then my daughter and then my wife briefly (as she was driving).

He said it was lifting off, projecting lots anf lots of white smoke. My son said that it had stabilising fins but seemed to be rotating. They said it had a red nose cone but was predominantly white with some sort of pattern on it.

My wife didn't see it until it was higher in the sky but she estimates now that it was 4 or 5 cm high in her field of vision. She estimated it to be very large. She thought is big enough to hold persons/people but she saw it so briefly that she couldn't be sure. She also said that it was travelling stright up and producing lots of white smoke.

They mentioned it to me when I got back from the UK. I have searched online but found no articles or mentions of it. Just to point out that there are no lauch facilities in Stockholm (that the public is aware of). They only lost sight of it when they turned a corner and trees obscured their view.

It may have been a hobby rocket but it sounds massive.
Russians doing another launch, perhaps?
 
Saturday 1st August, around 14.30 Swedish time, my wife and two kids witnessed a large rocket ascending into the sky.

are they anywhere near Kiruna?
 
Ringo:

Can you get some more details from the family? More specifically, can you get details on their route (which particular road was being traveled), their approximate location, and which direction they were facing when they saw the rocket? If the rocket wasn't viewed out front of the car - which direction was the rocket from the car's position?

There are roads that border the Alby Nature reserve on multiple sides
 
Ringo:

Can you get some more details from the family? More specifically, can you get details on their route (which particular road was being traveled), their approximate location, and which direction they were facing when they saw the rocket? If the rocket wasn't viewed out front of the car - which direction was the rocket from the car's position?

There are roads that border the Alby Nature reserve on multiple sides

These co-ordinates give the approximate location of the sighting.
59.228647, 18.259538
https://goo.gl/maps/yNgBb6SVpZFte3iF7

The car was travelling South on Myggdalsvägen. My son, sitting in the backseat and on the right hand side of the car, first spotted it when he looked out of his window and spotted it to his right hand side, meaning that it was in the sky to the West of their location. He pointed it out to Daughter who was also in the backseat. They both observed it through the right hand rear window of the caras it rose into the sky.

As my wife turned left onto Alby Skogsväg, she also saw it through the right hand front passenger window and then (as she was now driving East) saw it in the rear view mirror.

She turned her attention back to the road and the kids lost sight of it as it climbed and was obscured by the roof of the car. When my wife looked again she couldn't see anything because of trees.

They can't give my any more details about it's appearance. Only what I mentioned before:

Predominantly white with some sort of pattern on the body.
Red nose cone.
Tail fins but the object appeared to be rotating.
Blue flame and LOTS of white smoke (much more than an aeroplane contrail)
Large in size even from a distance.

They are all convinced of what they saw and unanimous in their description but I still can't find any mention of it anywhere. Looking at the map it could have been taking off from anywhere directly West of the marker. Maybe from Huddinge or somewhere else close? There are no rocket launch pads at all in the Stockholm area and it was in the wrong part of the sky to be coming from Russia or Finland.
 
Thanks for the additional details. I was thinking the sighting occurred somewhat south of there, nearer the shore.

The description of the rocket sounds like a hobbyist rocket or perhaps a sounding rocket. The voluminous smoke trail would be consistent with either. If the kids could see tail fins and note them rotating the rocket wasn't all that far away from them.

Given the direction, etc., my first guess is that it was a rocket launched from the open / wooded area immediately west of Krusboda "Centrum". According to Google there are a service dog training facility and a skeet shooting range in that wooded area. I'm having a hard time believing the rocket as described could have been launched from the more densely populated areas west of this wooded area.

My advice would be to contact AESIR - the association of rocket engeering students at KTH.

https://aesir.se

There were once multiple rocketry clubs in Sweden, but it appears most of them disappeared years ago. AESIR is the only hobby / student organization that seems to still be active in the Stockholm area.

The problem with this hypothesis is that AESIR typically launched its rockets from Älvdalens Skjutfält - quite distant to the north / northwest of Stockholm.
 
Thanks for the additional details. I was thinking the sighting occurred somewhat south of there, nearer the shore.

The description of the rocket sounds like a hobbyist rocket or perhaps a sounding rocket. The voluminous smoke trail would be consistent with either. If the kids could see tail fins and note them rotating the rocket wasn't all that far away from them.

Given the direction, etc., my first guess is that it was a rocket launched from the open / wooded area immediately west of Krusboda "Centrum". According to Google there are a service dog training facility and a skeet shooting range in that wooded area. I'm having a hard time believing the rocket as described could have been launched from the more densely populated areas west of this wooded area.

My advice would be to contact AESIR - the association of rocket engeering students at KTH.

https://aesir.se

There were once multiple rocketry clubs in Sweden, but it appears most of them disappeared years ago. AESIR is the only hobby / student organization that seems to still be active in the Stockholm area.

The problem with this hypothesis is that AESIR typically launched its rockets from Älvdalens Skjutfält - quite distant to the north / northwest of Stockholm.

I thought it sounded like a hobbyist rocket too. The open area you mention may be the launch site but it's quite a built up area surrounding it. The chances of it coming down in a garden or on a roof is very high. My wife seemed to think it was further away but then again, she only got two fleeting glimpses of it as she was driving.

I think I might contact Aesir.
 
Very often these mysterious 'rocket launches' turn out to be just ordinary aircraft seen from a strange angle.
Here's one from 2010
web-missile-tv.jpg


and here's one from 2011
45528231262_968ef9a4f1_c.jpg

...these really are very common.

The fact that the sighting was made from a moving car also reduces the accuracy of the report somewhat.
 
Very often these mysterious 'rocket launches' turn out to be just ordinary aircraft seen from a strange angle. ...

Good point ... It triggered another thought ...

It's summer - the season for air shows - and a dramatic vertical climb is a common maneuver for showing off a military fighter at an air show.

However ... I can't find any evidence of a recent air show in the Stockholm area, and the annual Swedish military historical air show was cancelled (and, anyway, is held far away from Stockholm).
 
Reminds me of the ghost rockets phenomenon of 1946 in Sweden. Have they made a comeback or did they never go away?
 
Let's dearly hope that isn't a comeback, then.
 
Very often these mysterious 'rocket launches' turn out to be just ordinary aircraft seen from a strange angle.

and here's one from 2011
View attachment 28978
...these really are very common.

The fact that the sighting was made from a moving car also reduces the accuracy of the report somewhat.

This was my first thought having seen this type of phenomena reported here before. So I showed my kids these images. However, both of my children (12 years and 8 years) are very clear and adamant in that they saw flames too. The rocket was close enough to identify as a rocket. They had a clear view of it's body. I'm of the thought that it was a large to medium sized hobby rocket seen at close range rather than a massive rocket seen at a distance.

It was seen in a perfectly blue summer sky early in the afternoon.

EDIT: I have just found that there was a rocket competition based in Stockholm in Feb 2020. There were teams from all over the country competing - one of them local to us. It may have been one of them testing something new??

https://www.ntigymnasiet.se/nyheter/nti-rocket-tournament/
 
The main characteristic that distinguishes these fake 'contrail' missiles from real rocket launches is that the misidentified contrails tend to hang around for many minutes, often with little or no discernable change. That's because they are far away, and moving slowly. Rocket launches are very fast.

The event you describe seems to have been fairly brief, so could very well have been a hobby-rocket launch or something.
 
just thinking aloud here: looked up those map co-ordinates and superimposed them on Wikipedia's map of Swedish military facilities. The location has several military bases not so far away and appears to be in the middle of a few helicopter and air bases. Is it possible the military use nearby areas for training/testing weaponry?
 
just thinking aloud here: looked up those map co-ordinates and superimposed them on Wikipedia's map of Swedish military facilities. The location has several military bases not so far away and appears to be in the middle of a few helicopter and air bases. Is it possible the military use nearby areas for training/testing weaponry?

While there are a few bases dotted around, they don't launch any rockets from any of them. There is one military range nearby in Berga, Väster Haninge but it is used for close quarters combat training with small to medium arms fire. There is a lot of rocket stuff up in the north of the country but AFAIK nothing in the Stockholm area.

Based on the description from the kids, it didn't seem very military. What's really annoying is that I can't find any mention of it online. Which suggests that it was a) smaller than they thought and not many people saw it or b) misidentified (which while possible does seem improbable with 3 witnesses being able to se the shape of it's body and design features).
 
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