An Arctic Aurora
from "Tent Life in Siberia by George Kennan
On February 26, 1866 a memorable example of the Aurora Borealis took place. It's phenomenal description is recounted in the Christian Science Journal. (Vol. IX, No. 37, p. 675)Doris Grekel, in the second volume of her magnificent biographical work on Mrs. Eddy, provides illumination on the significance of these events.
"The Arctic Aurora of February 26 is not the only sign that appeared in the heavens in 1866 to herald the end of the world,-i.e., the end of the world of matter and the beginning of the understanding that 'man is not material, he is spiritual.' The fact that the moon (matter) was under the feet of the Woman of the Apocalypse was signified in a manner that had never before occurred in the history of the world. [The Granite Monthly recorded,] 'February, 1866, had no full moon. This remarkable feat of nature had never happened before [when a full moon had been forecast].'"
"On the 26th of February [1866] . . . there occurred one of the
grandest displays of the Arctic Aurora which had been observed there for
more than fifty years, and which exhibited such unusual and extraordinary
brilliancy that even the natives were astonished. . . . Late in the evening
. . . there burst suddenly upon our startled eyes the grandest exhibition
of vivid dazzling light and color of which the mind can conceive. The whole
universe seemed to be on fire. A broad arch of brilliant prismatic colors
spanned the heavens from east to west like a gigantic rainbow, with a long
fringe of crimson and yellow streamers stretching up from its convex edge
to the very zenith. At short intervals of one or two seconds, wide, luminous
bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly out of the northern horizon
and swept with a swift, steady majesty across the whole heavens, like long
breakers of phosphorescent light rolling in from some limitless ocean of
space.
"Every portion of the vast arch was momentarily wavering, trembling,
and changing color, and the brilliant streamers which fringed its edge swept
back and forth in great curves, like the fiery sword of the angel at the
gate of Eden. In a moment the vast auroral rainbow, with all its wavering
streamers, began to move slowly up toward the zenith, and a second arch
of equal brilliancy formed directly under it, shooting up another long serried
row of slender colored lances toward the North Star, like a battalion of
the celestial host presenting arms to its commanding angel. Every instant
the display increased in unearthly grandeur. The luminous bands revolved
swiftly, like the spokes of a great wheel of light across the heavens; the
streamers hurried back and forth with swift, tremulous motion from the ends
of the arches to the center, and now and then a great wave of crimson would
surge up from the north and fairly deluge the whole sky with color, tinging
the white snowy earth far and wide with its rosy reflection. But as the
words of the prophecy, "And the heavens shall be turned to blood,"
formed themselves upon my lips, the crimson suddenly vanished, and a lightening
flash of vivid orange startled us with its wide, all-pervading glare, which
extended even to the southern horizon, as if the whole volume of the atmosphere
had suddenly taken fire. I even held my breath a moment, as I listened for
the tremendous crash of thunder which it seemed to me must follow this sudden
burst of vivid light; but in heaven and earth there was not a sound to break
the calm silence of night, save the hastily-muttered prayers of the frightened
native at my side, as he crossed himself and kneeled down before the visible
majesty of God. I could not imagine any possible addition which even the
Almighty power could make to the grandeur of the Aurora as it now appeared.
The rapid alternations of crimson, blue, green, and yellow in the sky were
reflected so vividly from the white surface or the snow, that the whole
world seemed now steeped in blood, and then quivering in an atmosphere of
pale, ghastly green, through which shone the unspeakable glories of mighty
crimson and yellow arches.
"But the end was not yet. As we watched with upturned faces the
swift ebb and flow of these great celestial tides of colored light, the
last seal of the glorious revelation was suddenly broken, and both arches
were simultaneously shivered into a thousand parallel perpendicular bars,
every one of which displayed in regular order, from top to bottom, the seven
primary colors of the solar spectrum. From horizon to horizon there now
stretched two vast curving bridges of colored bars, across which we almost
expected to see, passing and repassing, the bright inhabitants of another
world. Amid cries of astonishment and exclamations of 'God have mercy!'
from the startled natives, these innumerable bars began to move, with a
swift dancing motion, back and forth, along the whole extent of both arches,
passing each other from side to side with such bewildering rapidity, that
the eye was lost in the attempt to follow them. The whole concave of heaven
seemed transformed into one great revolving kaleidoscope of shattered rainbows.
Never had I even dreamed of such an aurora as this, and I am not
ashamed to confess that its magnificence at that moment overawed and frightened
me. The whole sky, from zenith to horizon, was one molten, mantling sea
of color and fire, crimson and purple, and scarlet and green, and colors
for which there are no words in language and no ideas in the mind,-things
which can only be conceived while they are visible.' The 'signs and portents'
in the heavens were grand enough to herald the destruction of a world: flashes
of rich quivering color, covering half the sky for an instant and then vanishing
like summer lightning; brilliant green streamers shooting swiftly but silently
up across the zenith: thousands of variegated bars sweeping past each other
in two magnificent arches, and great luminous waves rolling in from the
inter-planetary spaces and breaking in long lines of radiant glory upon
the shallow atmosphere of a darkened world.
"With the separation of the two arches into component bars it reached its utmost magnificence, and from that time its supernatural beauty slowly but steadily faded. The first arch broke up, and soon after it the second: the flashes of color appeared less and less frequently; the luminous bands ceased to revolve across the zenith; and in an hour nothing remained in the dark starry heavens to remind us of the Aurora, except a few faint Magellan clouds of luminous vapor."