Quote:
Originally Posted by tone3jaguar
People would have been able to hear the rocket, plus rockets have contrails of smoke not blue plasma.
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Most of what is in the videos appears to be out of the atmosphere. The distance to the launch point is unknown but could easily be many miles and once the rocket is out of the atmosphere sound will not carry.
Look at the full set of photos available. The blue is probably from a leak of unburned fuel or oxidizer. The white is rocket exhaust. Both are illuminated by the sun which is just over the horizon rather than self-luminous (note the red glow of sunrise near the horizon). In later pictures, both are still around but are becoming more diffuse like a cloud of droplets or smoke would. They don't just "switch off".
Norway spiral pictures on Gizmodo
I was really hoping this was some great cosmic mystery, but instead it is just the Russians giving new meaning to the word "screw up" (7 of 13 Bulava missile launches have failed). If it were some mystery, this might actually be on-topic!