  The remarkable recent experiments on ensembles of magnetically trapped
ultracold alkali atoms have demonstrated the transition to a highly ordered
phase, that has been attributed to the process of quantum-mechanical
condensation, predicted long ago (1924) by Bose and Einstein. After having
presented our argument against the above attribution, we show that the known
phenomenology, including a discrepancy of about one order of magnitude with the
predictions of Bose- Einstein condensation, is in good agreement with the
electromagnetic coherence induced on the alkali atoms by the long range
electrodynamic interactions. We also predict that for temperatures lower than a
well defined $T_{BEC}$, the state predicted by Bose and Einstein coexists with
the new coherent electrodynamic state.
