Norway Spiral: WATCH Strange Light In Sky Ahead Of Obama Nobel Peace Prize Speech (VIDEO)

The Norway Spiral, a strange light that appeared in the sky across Norway last night, has Norwegian residents and international spectators baffled as videos of the incident hit YouTube.

The light was spotted one day before President Barack Obama was scheduled to give an acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway for his Nobel Peace Prize.

Speculation is rampant on what the light actually was; "anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or shock wave" has been mentioned, per the Mail Online.
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations – that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.The Norway Spiral, a strange light that appeared in the sky across Norway last night, has Norwegian residents and international spectators baffled as videos of the incident hit YouTube.

The light was spotted one day before President Barack Obama was scheduled to give an acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway for his Nobel Peace Prize.

Speculation is rampant on what the light actually was; "anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or shock wave" has been mentioned, per the Mail Online.
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations – that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize – Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela – my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened of cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women – some known, some obscure to all but those they help – to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty three other countries – including Norway – in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

These questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease – the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

Over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers, clerics, and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when it meets certain preconditions: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the forced used is proportional, and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage.  Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize – Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela – my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened of cynics.  I cannot argue with those who find these men and women – some known, some obscure to all but those they help – to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars.  One of these wars is winding down.  The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty three other countries – including Norway – in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.  Some will kill.  Some will be killed.  And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

These questions are not new.  War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man.  At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease – the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

Over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers, clerics, and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when it meets certain preconditions: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the forced used is proportional, and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

President Obama Accepts Nobel Peace Prize

Many of this week's Nobel Prize awards announcements and laureate lectures are being streamed live as part of a program started this year between the Nobel Foundation and Google Inc.'s YouTube. They join other new Web features including "Ask a Laureate," which lets YouTube users hear 2006 physics laureate John Mather answer questions about subjects like the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe.

Established in 1900 to manage the money that finances the prizes, the Nobel Foundation was for years shrouded in secrecy because its legal structure prevented it from funding modern media projects or partnering with private corporations. In 1999, however, the foundation created a nonprofit rights association that now oversees two museums and two companies -- Nobel Media AB, which manages media rights, and Nobel Web AB, which expands Nobel's online presence.


"The foundation is creating new things every year -- interesting things -- and we wanted to control it," said Nobel Foundation Executive Director Michael Sohlman.

This year, the foundation's growing appetite for exploiting its content comes against a backdrop of criticism in some quarters over the selection of President Barack Obama as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Some saw his selection as an attempt to create buzz with a winner who hasn't yet done enough to merit the honor.

Mr. Sohlman says the organization's "absolute Chinese walls" prevent anyone at its assorted companies or the foundation from influencing the selection committees.

For years, Swedish and Norwegian television broadcast the ceremonies under an informal arrangement. Now the media company has a portfolio of 12 to 15 television programs a year, including documentaries and discussion shows, many sponsored by corporations and aired on public broadcasters such as PBS and the BBC.

When Mr. Obama delivers his speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, television companies will pay Nobel Media an undisclosed licensing fee to broadcast the feed, which will also be seen on the foundation's Web site.

Nobel Media's nontelevision initiatives include publishing deals and a lecture series sponsored by Honeywell International Inc., which has brought Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry to lecture to more than 14,000 students and teachers across the world, and a similar initiative sponsored by AstraZeneca PLC for Nobel laureates in medicine and physiology.
Bringing private companies into the fold can be tricky. Last year, Swedish prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into AstraZeneca's ties to the Nobel committee, after German scientist Harald zur Hausen won the prize in medicine for discovering that the human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer. AstraZeneca made a component of vaccines preventing the virus.
The investigation didn't proceed. AstraZeneca says it didn't seek to influence the prizes and Nobel said the company's involvement had no bearing on the prize.