Strange "laser" like lights in the night sky

Hello. I’m new here. I have only posted in the introduction forum so far. I wanted to share an event I witnessed about 25 years ago.

I was about 10 at the time, my brother came home late from work and woke me up. He said there were some strange lights outside I should see. He knew I was interested in astronomy because I owned a cheap beginners telescope at the time. I went downstairs and poked my head out the back door which faced east. I saw about 6 to 10 faint red light “beams” above the horizon. I say faint, however they were still plenty bright enough to see in the city light pollution. And when I say horizon I don’t really know how far away they were. They could have been a mile or a thousand miles away. They may have touched the ground or may have been in the atmosphere.

They were equal distance apart, perpendicular to the ground and met up at the zenith. The best way to describe what it looked like was imagine yourself in a giant birdcage. Except the bars were made of red light.

I only saw them to the east, I will say from 30 degrees to maybe 150 degrees on the horizon. Though I did not go outside to see if they were elsewhere. I was no more then 10 years old at the time and did not want to get in trouble.

My only thought is it was some sort of Aurora Borealis show, however I can’t imagine them running in straight lines. This is the only unexplained thing I have seen in my life. I was hoping someone had some thoughts on it.

[edit on 23-6-2007 by Verhasst]