Speaking of South Carolina and bizarro lights in the sky, here are a couple shots of a real beauty that I took in the spring or summer of 2002, I
believe. At the time, I lived in upstate SC at Lake Wylie (right on the border of NC/SC), about 5 miles north of a nuclear power plant. So when this
multi-colored glowing cloud appeared in the night sky to the south, I was ready to evacuate, no questions asked.
What you're seeing is a view from an apartment complex, looking south, and it was maybe 45 minutes after sundown. That big glowing cloud in the sky
(center) is about the width of 5 full moons.
This second shot is from a different angle, using a tree to block out the flood lights of the tennis court. Kind of hard to tell from this old photo,
but the cloud is glowing greens and pinks and yellows and blues and you name it.
What was it??
Well, happily, it wasn't the nuclear power plant melting down. I switched on the mind-control box (my television) in time to hear that this thing
was visible
all up and down the East Coast. It was, in fact, the result of a night-time shuttle launch
waaaay on down at Cape Kennedy
in Florida -- that's some 800 miles distant from the camera.
The shuttle (don't recall which mission) took off in darkness but soon rose high above the terminator, where its massive exhaust plume was brightly
illuminated in full solar radiation. Cool. I submitted the originals of these pix to NASA's James Oberg, who featured them on his website for a few
weeks.
— Doc Velocity
[edit on 1/29/2007 by Doc Velocity]