Greifswald

Greifswald and the Lights over the Bay

On the evening of 24 August 1990 a group of bright lights arranged in an arc hung over the Bay of Greifswald on the Baltic coast for several hours. Hundreds of people saw them from both sides of the water, and at least five filmed them — remarkable for the time and the place: East Germany had weeks left to exist. The recordings were examined by investigators and by the military. The likeliest explanation is a Soviet army exercise with parachute flares over the Peenemünde range; some of the footage fits it, and some — by timing and altitude — does not. The footage remains one of the longest amateur video records of the phenomenon in Europe.