Other rare phenomena

As we rounded the northern tip of Norway the North Pole was only about 1200 miles away. The towns here (yes, towns!) like to boast about having the northernmost brewery, the northernmost Burger King, or the northernmost film festival. You get the idea. We disembarked in Kirkenes for our flight back to Oslo. We could see Russia from here, only a couple miles away. Not to be outdone by the northern lights, the Polar north gave us an unexpected bonus light show gift on New Year's Eve. Out of the plane windows we had a rare look at Noctilucent ("night shining") clouds, the highest in the Earth's atmosphere, visible only in deep twilight when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in Earth's shadow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloud