This was seen in Norway and corroborated by hundreds and hundreds of eyewitnesses and photographs, many from cell phones. There is also video (which depicts the white spiral spinning slowly).
The thing persisted for somewhere between 3 and 15 minutes depending on accounts and then vanished from the center out:
Best theory I've heard is from the article at the top. A guy managed to make a model of a rocket stage tumbling in the upper atmosphere (which lasts about 10 minutes) and expending unspent fuel from both ends. The result is two independant spirals. Backlight those fuel spirals and resultant vapor from the upper atmosphere with the soon to be rising sun and voila... aliens.
To be honest I've seen a few shops in my time and you can see how some of the pixels......
Ok I can't type that without laughing. That must have been one of the most amazing things to have seen in person. The photo is awesome, kudos to the photographer.
The Norse one looks much cooler than the Chinese one. But still would be amazing to see in person.