Reports of EMP Blast Over Novgorod, Russia: Looked “Something Like the Northern Lights”

On November 29 at 8:15PM local time, the lights in the small city of Novgorod, Russia went out.

A video of the incident suggests a transformer may have been destroyed, but the reasons behind it are as of yet unclear.

Residents of the town report that electrical power in the area was completely out – for seconds in some areas and up to two hours in others – affecting street lights, televisions and other electrical components.

Radio stations, as depicted in the video below, were also knocked out fractions of a second before a large flash was seen lighting up the sky.

Gismeteo News Russia reports:

[Translated by Google]

After that, the sky over the city was decorated something like the Northern Lights. Bright flashes clearly emerge through the clouds.

Video via Steve Quayle:

Though townspeople joked about the event being a “rehearsal” for the Mayan Doomsday, the official response from the local power company is that a transformer blew out:

The power company explained it all as ‘A cat that wandered into a power transformer booth and caused a short circuit.’

Some speculation surrounding the incident suggests the flash of light and subsequent power outage may have been caused by an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon test of some kind.

While such a pulse wave itself would likely be invisible to the human eye, the initial detonation of a weapon that sends out an EMP could be similar in nature to the flash of light seen in the video capture of the event. Likewise, “northern lights” could be one possible way such a flash of light might be described as it spread across the sky.

Such a blast, however, should also be accompanied by a loud thunderous boom. Residents in the city did not report hearing thunder.

Was it an EMP test or a common transformer explosion?