Emergency Calls to Report the Milky Way

Up There In the Sky...

Apparently it is possible to live on this planet in a place where the Milky Way cannot be seen at night.  You'd think I would know about this, having been born to it.  But my fascination with the sky began at an early age and I was made aware of the this sight early on.  However, my fellow Los Angelinos were not.

In 1994, January 17th at 4:30 AM, shortly after the Northridge earthquake shook people of Southern California out of their beds, many people called in to Emergency Services reporting a bizarre sight.  A sort of cosmic event was overhead.  This cosmic scene surely combined with the recent earthen event was probably enough to give some people a mighty fright. 

The earthquake had knocked out most of the power in many of the cities in the area and this being the dead of winter the Sun would not rise for another few hours, making it likely the darkest part of night.

After decades of the night sky being blotted out by the ground light sent upward, the some of people of Southern California had never been in the presence of what someone in the wilderness could have easily recalled. It was to them a foreign or unfamiliar visage. What odd lights and formations dotted the sky, which before was always black or rarely dotted with the brightest stars, but mostly only aircraft.

Surely some people had seen the twinkling lights and occasional planets in the land where Hollywood Stars originate, but the ominous mid-section of the galaxy that we call home, may have been a awe-strikingly new concept.

Alas, what would our ancestors have said to us for responding so ridiculously to the stars in the night sky? ... "OMG is that the new iPhone!?"

Source: TimeLine