Replies

Re: Northern Lights
From RANGERAIRBORNE | 11/06/2001 7:30:58 AM PST read

Yes, great Auroral display this early morning- but I'm in Anchorage right now, and the "light pollution" makes any decent photography pretty much impossible.

A few years ago, though. I was operating an airfield for an oil company at a very remote location on the North Slope. I was out checking the lights and plowing the runway, when I saw the most spectatular Aurora I have ever witnessed. It was a brillant mixture of bright red and green, in a "whirlpool" shape, rotating over my head.

I have never seen anything like it before or since- it was like being inside a tornado made of light. (Or a little like the final scene in "CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND", when the Mother Ship lands- but much better.)
I actually went into the camp and woke up all 50 or so workers (many of them from Texas and Louisiana) and told them to come outside to catch this once-in-a lifetime experience. Most did.

By the way, on a cold, clear night with a bright Aurora, you can actually HEAR it- sort of a "crackling" sound.

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RANGERAIRBORNE.
He brightened FR and earth.
Now he brightens Heaven.