A midnight ride to see the Northern Lights so far south here outside Seattle revealed unexpected anomalies in the skies overhead. Were they airplanes? Stars? Or were they Alien UFOs/UAPs?

The Aurora Borealis as seen from the top bluffs of Richmond Beach Saltwater Park, Shoreline, WA, Saturday 11 May 2024 @ 12:14:07.

The Sun had erupted in a spectacular storm. Two massive solar flares burst forth from our star’s surface, a X5.8 class followed by an X1.5 along with two M9s. X’s are the most powerful of three categories of such storms, the other two being M Class, for moderate, and C for the smallest. Coronal mass ejections of plasma, or CMEs, often accompany such sunspot activity. This resulted in a G5 level geomagnetic storm, the most powerful on a scale up from G1. Various authorities issued warnings of possible interruptions of our electrical power grid including our various communications networks. They also predicted people may see the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, around the world and as far south as the middle and southern belts of the United States.

Had arrived home from work around 22:00 on the night of Friday 10 May, and had to work the next day. I’ve heard these claims before: a massive solar eruption/solar storm/solar flares/coronal mass ejections or CMEs was or were in progress…our electric-power based global civilization was at risk as power grids could collapse…telecommunications, satellites, the internet, yadda yadda piñata … and, by the way, remember the Carrington Event of September 1859! And we may be able to see the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis, way down south. And then nothing would happen. Couldn’t see anything. So I had gone to bed and was about to fall asleep when my ex-wife Kristina, out at Seattle’s Matthews Beach Park on Lake Washington, and my buddy Edan, up on rural Whidbey Island, texted a whole group of us startling fotos of shimmering curtains and feathery rays of magenta and emerald lights undulating across the night skies.  Continue reading →