Midnight At Noon

Time after time, history records instances where sudden darkness blanketed cities and nations in midday. What happened, and why?

On April 26 1884, Preston, England was the scene of a dramatic darkness at midday. News reports indicate that the sky simply turned black, as though a great curtain had been pulled over it. Alarmed citizens fumbled their way around the streets, animals went to bed, and the devout turned to prayer. Then, as suddenly as it began, the darkness was dissipated and daylight returned. The occurrence was never explained.

There was at Aitkin, Minnesota, April 2, 1889, a sudden and intense darkness during which sand streamed down from the blackness. It too went unexplained.

London was blacked out suddenly in mid-morning on August 19, 1763. This was described as an intense, paralyzing blackness which seemed impervious to candles and lanterns. Astronomers admitted that there was no eclipse.

Oshkosh Wisconsin had a daytime blackout of unknown origin on March 19, 1886, which began at three o'clock in the afternoon and in five minutes plunged the city into pitch darkness. It lasted not more than ten minutes, according to officials, the blot of darkness moving from west to east in the sky that was thickly covered with clouds.

Memphis Tennessee was going about its affairs as usual at ten o'clock in the morning of December 2, 1904, when for no apparent reason the sun vanished and darkness fell. The ensuing fifteen minutes were a time of terror for many. In some quarters of the city there was shouting and screaming and anguished prayer by those who had feared the end of the world had come.

For psychological reasons, perhaps these infrequent but disturbing periods of unscheduled darkness in daytime are explained away variously as forest fire smoke, unusual cloud formations, or dust clouds from distant deserts. There are occasions when such explainations are doubtless justified

There are other incidents however when such explainations are debatable to say the least, and one such instance occurred on September 24 of 1950, when a large part of the United States experienced a weird blue sun that appeared to shining weakly through a heavy filter. On the 26th of Sep. Scotland and England found that the sun had turned a blue-green for them. In Denmark the blue sun lasted only 2 hours, but that was long enough for lines to form at the banks, people eager to draw out their savings in case the end of the world had come.

Again, the ever ready explainations were promptly made available. The American public was told that the peculiar appearance of the sun was due to smoke from a vast forest fire in Alberta Canada. The smoke, so it was explained, rose to high level and acted as a dense filter which screened the sunlight to its unnateral hue.

There was one serious flaw in that explaination; for at the same time the alleged smoke was said to be riding the winds eastward across the U.S., it was also moving westward across the state of Washington and obscuring the sun. It is an odd wind indeed that blows smoke in two opposite directions around the globe at the same time.


[edit on 30-7-2007 by Grock]

I remember watching an old sci-fi movie with my gran when I was small, late 60s, early 70s. I think it was abut the sun moving closer to the earth or vise versa and things were going on fire. Anyway I remember her telling me about a day when she was younger when the sky went black. I don't remember much else but I clearly had the impression that the sky turned black for everyone before I was born and she didn't mean an eclipse. I've a crazy theory about the sun, (real crazy). Sunspots could be actual (black?) holes. Perhaps the sun is completely hollow and very occasionally the fire goes right out, then relights. Completely mad theory I know. (It's one of my most bizarre ones.)

[edit on 30-7-2007 by wigit]

Volcanic eruptions, massive forest fires, industrial smoke - all can cause the sun to appear a different colour and affect daylight. Only time I've seen it go dark in daytime though has been in conjunction with a heavy convective storm.

There was one serious flaw in that explaination; for at the same time the alleged smoke was said to be riding the winds eastward across the U.S., it was also moving westward across the state of Washington and obscuring the sun. It is an odd wind indeed that blows smoke in two opposite directions around the globe at the same time.

Not necessarily a flaw - low levels winds might well have blown the smoke westwards. But at the same time some of the smoke would have been rising and at a high level it may have been caught by the jetstream and blown eastwards - hence it later affecting the UK and Denmark.

Personally, i cant think of any 'weird' reasons for the sun to vanish in any specific local - the only other options that seem to explain it would have to be something in the atmosphere... but then again, ya never know.

Great thread! These situations described are very interesting. I will have to do more reading up on the subject before i chose an opinion or theory.

My preliminary thoughts on this topic:

1. Could be just one persons account that had become local myth and spread from there so everyone in the town "saw" this happen.
2. Thunderstorms/ other convective cloud descibed without knowledge of what was happening.
3. Smoke (very inclined to belive this theory since the "sun turned blue")

The obvious answers are of course atmospheric phenomena BUT that could not account for the times that occured in an instant, lasted 5 or 10 minutes, then went away in an instant! We are all aware of how clouds and smoke moves and its light diffusion/refracting effects (I presume that even though we are more 'scientificly advanced' nowadays that the people involved in these instances were also aware of these attributes of smoke and clouds) and these effects do NOT adequately explain these events.

Im still mystified myself (though I admit that at least a few CAN be explained)...

Also, i'd like to point out that there are far more of these instances than what I had originally posted, I'll put up some more soon.

Originally posted by Grock
Also, i'd like to point out that there are far more of these instances than what I had originally posted, I'll put up some more soon.

Please do! You have certainly piqued my interest on this one. Please post a few links as well as Google isn't being too helpful for me.

I look forward to reading more

Interesting thread going on here.

Don't know of it's related, or even true, but this site says that several unexplained events around some of the time frames you mention (particularly the April 26 1884 incident):

www.perceptions.couk.com...

It's possible that some of these sightings of unexplained phenomena are related.

As for the forest fires, I know from experience that the winds that carry smoke can definitely go against the usual wind patterns. In north Alabama we had quite a bit of smoke come our way from the recent forest fires near the GA / FL border.

Interesting site, thank you.

I have alot of stories of strange lights in the sky as well, im wondering if I should make a new thread or just add them to this thread. What do you guys/gals think?

guess i'll just do it anyway, thank you all for your responses :-)

I appreciate the feedback :-)

Speaking from a physics point of view, ways for the sun to "go out" would include something eclipsing the sun - something interering between the sun and the earth outside the atmosphere, such as an extremely large and fast moving asteroid, or something in the atmosphere absorbing *all* the light..

Usually, the atmosphere refracts the sun's light, bending it, which accounts for the different colors our sky can appear.. If there were something there that didn't refract or reflect at all, but absorbed all the light, that would account for darkness..

Other than that, there's really not much you can do to photons to make them disappear completely..

How about a little research here (I'm about to dash out the door so can't do it) -- can we find any records confirming the observations and dates?

We'd need sources that aren't copying a single reported source. Any hits out there?

Due to popular demand, here are some websites that may help with your investigations:

boston.about.com...

www.pbc.org...

this one mentions how marco polo described it happening for 3 hours at mid day during his trip to china:

www.infidels.org...

www.resologist.net...

aquarianmysteries.com...

www.w-files.com...

www.cassiopaea.org...

www.sacred-texts.com...

in these sites you will find each and every instance I mention...

enjoy

NOW this is very interesting

I never heard of any such thing happening! What a weird thing to happen.

Its really worth researching.

Good thread

I just wanted to spend a moment and thank everyone for the positive feedback I have been getting about this thread, both here and u2u's.

From a strictly online perspective, it has been somewhat difficult to find these stories and others like them. The links I placed above will require quite a bit of reading but they are there.

I also have numerous reports of strange nioses and flashes in the sky as well (flashes being somewhat opposite of this thread, not 'ufo type' lights)

Again, thank you for the feedback. I'll try and keep it up with threads like these (I aslo have one out about giants, one about animals found alive in solid rock, and one about things falling from the skies... all strange, but all true)

Ok I just phoned my grandma who is 88 years old and very alert @ aware and whom I consider a credible witness to the events of the past. She recalls where she was on the day of Sept. 1950 as mentioned above and said she did not hear or experience anything like the post above stated. She was college educated and has always been interested in current events.
I also asked my great aunt also 88 years old , however she went into a story about post Hiroshima (Alzheimer's).
So the best way to find out would be to ask around to your elderly relatives and friends. They did not have the distractions like we do so if an event happens as big as that, they do remember.
Very interesting thread, and I suppose it is more than possible from time to time.

Antar,

whom I consider a credible witness to the events of the past. She recalls where she was on the day of Sept. 1950 as mentioned above and said she did not hear or experience anything like the post above stated. She was college educated and has always been interested in current events.

This does not necessarily mean that the events did NOT happen.

www.newscientist.com...

www.spaceweather.com...

amateurastronomy.org...

And heres the sories of scotland and england on the 26th

www.brainyhistory.com...

www.astronomycafe.net...

www.straightdope.com...

Not to put down those who were there or could have been there or those who might know someone who was there or coulda been there, BUT memory is famous for playing tricks on us - did she know about one of Canada's largest fires ever in its history that occured around that time? that would have been a better question - and I'm willing to guess that she wont be able to remember.

Very interesting thread and thanks for all the links. You know, I've occasionally noticed very momentary periods of "blackness" in my lifetime. (And we're not talking alcoholic or drug induced here ok?!?)

At first I tried attributing it to a plane or something passing between me and the sun, but as the number of incidents increased, I became more aware and started actively looking for airborne culprits with no luck. It's very strange and at times disconcerting. What does it mean? I have NO idea, just that I notice it. It has absolutely no impact on or around me other than the frustration of not knowing the cause.

The world and the universe is a strange place indeed!

I have come to a theory which could explain this phenomena..

I put the blame of this on the sun.. It's entirely possible the sun emitted a huge solar flare, or blast of light.. as we know, a flash of light or exposure to bright lights can cause blindness. Some of the accounts you presented us say things like,

"London was blacked out suddenly in mid-morning on August 19, 1763. This was described as an intense, paralyzing blackness which seemed impervious to candles and lanterns. Astronomers admitted that there was no eclipse."

This leads me to think of a temporary blindness, one, which occurs in almost an instant, and takes a few hours or more to wear off.

I think coal smoke is to blame here. Think about it, most of these events occurred pre-Green Movement in major industrial towns. Coal smoke can be really nasty given the right weather conditions.