So last night I was with a friend from North Dakota. She was born in 1931. Born, raised and lived her life in North Dakota until she moved to Florida in her retirement.
We were talking about the aurora borealis which I’ve never seen but want to while she’s seen it.
She then began talking about the “Northern Lights.” That term is currently synonymous for the aurora. But as she spoke it became clear that it was not to her.
To her, the aurora borealis is something she only saw one night of her life.
While “Northern Lights” were something she commonly saw in the winter. She specified the Northern Lights only happened in the winter. She said they were only white with no other color. She did her hands in a straight upward movement as if describing columns in the sky.
What the heck is she talking about? I’ve searched Northern Lights and all that comes up is it being synonymous with the aurora.
Is this some archaic or regional use for the term “Northern Lights” referring to some different astronomical phenomenon?
Although not secured by fences or guards or particularly ill-tempered badgers, the border between the USA and Canada is modestly illuminated, and has been since just before the end of WWII. This was part of a hushed-up USA initiative intended to deter southward migration of European Jewish refugees, whom Canada offered sanctuary from German persecution but little else. Winter atmospheric conditions from eastern Montana to the westernmost parts of Minnesota will sometimes reflect, and even amplify, the low-voltage scalar halide lamps used on the border, to the point where they are quite visible for up to about a hundred miles. Localized fog, combined with topographical formations, will further enhance the effect–shading it in some places while focusing it in others–so that at times there appear to be columns of white light. One can “chase” the columns in an attempt to locate their source but, like rainbows, they will seem to move relative to the observer. Americans who first witnessed this phenomenon were completely ignorant of the actual cause, but satisfied themselves, generally, that it was harmless. Viewed from south of the Canada/USA border, they became known to locals as simply, “northern lights”.
I always thought they did use ill-tempered badgers in guarding borders, until I recently learned that they were all employed, in early post-WWII days, in powering message boards. Apparently it’s a recent innovation to use hamsters for that purpose.
Northern lights is the local term from where I’ve lived in Minnesota and South Dakota. They were auroras only if you got yourself some education and wanted to sound all highfalutin.
As far as seeing the auroras only once, it might be because lately they’ve been quite inactive for a long time until recently. Last month they were directly overhead and even towards the south of the zenith, so I guess they’re not legally “northern” lights - maybe that’s her distinction.
The aurora can have many different appearances. Pillars of light, too faint to show any visible color, are one of the most common. Rarer is the colored curtains effect you see so much in pictures. It might be that she mistakenly thought that only the curtains were true aurorae.
For what it’s worth, I’ve also seen an aurora that looked like a green amoeba changing shape in the sky, one that had the whole sky changing colors with an occasional white “windshield wiper” line sweeping quickly across the sky, a few with indistinct sky glow (sometimes red and/or green, sometimes white) off to the north, and once or twice an arch of light across the sky. Sometimes it transitions from one to another: Start with pillars to the north, then the pillars split up and shift east and west, then the pillars reach high enough to combine into an arch overhead, then the arch develops more details until it looks like the curtains.
