Mysterious green laser beams shooting through the cloudy sky were captured by motion detection cameras of a scientist from the Hiratsuka City Museum in Japan.
The strange laser was first recorded on September 16, 2022, and remained a mystery until recently, when Mr. Daichi Fujii, the curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum and the owner of the homemade motion detection cameras installed near Mount Fuji, made the discovery.
Laser beam flying through the cloudy sky near Mount Fuji – (Photo: Daichi Fujii).
Mr. Fujii began to grow suspicious when he noticed not just one, but multiple strange laser beams. Upon further analysis of the data, a small green dot also appeared briefly amidst the dense clouds. He had a “chilling” discovery, as reported by the science publication SciTech Daily.
This clever wordplay refers to the “ice warrior” ICESat-2 from NASA.
After receiving the information, the ICESat-2 team verified that this was indeed laser light from their equipment.
According to ICESat-2 scientist Tony Martino from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, this is the first time the ICESat-2 team has seen footage of laser beams from this satellite transmitting from orbit to the ground.
“To see the laser, you have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right conditions,” Martino said.
The ice laser cuts through the sky of Japan – (Clip: Daichi Fujii).
Referred to as the “ice warrior,” ICESat-2, officially known as the “Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite 2,” is a device that uses lidar technology to send laser beams to monitor ice conditions from Greenland to Antarctica, map frozen sea areas, determine the height of freshwater reservoirs, and more.
While this laser is powerful, it poses no harm to humans and is difficult to observe. When it passed near Mount Fuji, the Japanese scientist was fortunate that the sky had two thin layers of clouds to scatter the light in a way that allowed him to observe it.
