Blue/Purple cloud lighting

Maury Markowitz

Maury Markowitz

Active Member
There is a relatively common event being posted on the UFO subs on Reddit which shows the clouds being lit up by a bluish, or more commonly, purplish light. In contrast to spotlights, these appear as a large patch in the sky and don't move. They seem much more like the red or pink greenhouse lighting, but a smaller patch of the sky, purple, and generally near or in cities.

Is this some sort of new party light?
 
Maury Markowitz said:
There is a relatively common event being posted on the UFO subs on Reddit which shows the clouds being lit up by a bluish, or more commonly, purplish light. In contrast to spotlights, these appear as a large patch in the sky and don't move. They seem much more like the red or pink greenhouse lighting, but a smaller patch of the sky, purple, and generally near or in cities.

Is this some sort of new party light?
Click to expand...
Might be grow lights for college football stadiums like Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego: https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/snapdragon-stadium-pink-lights-san-diego/

1764186401635.png


Systems provided by companies like https://sglsystem.com/.
1764186476898.png
 
jdog said:
Might be grow lights for college football stadiums like Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego: https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/snapdragon-stadium-pink-lights-san-diego/

View attachment 86556

Systems provided by companies like https://sglsystem.com/.
Click to expand...
This is not it. These lights are pink, not purple. The ones I'm talking about are very very purple. They are also, as I noted, smaller in the sky.

Oh, and I noticed I didn't post the important part: they report they are only visible on camera. This leads me to believe these are UV lamps?

I had a bunch of them in the sidebar in my Reddit screen, but of course when I go back now they are all gone and I can't find them.

Ahhh, here we go:


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo/comments/1p6zh88/purple_blob/
 
Maury Markowitz said:
This is not it. These lights are pink, not purple. The ones I'm talking about are very very purple. They are also, as I noted, smaller in the sky.

Oh, and I noticed I didn't post the important part: they report they are only visible on camera. This leads me to believe these are UV lamps?

I had a bunch of them in the sidebar in my Reddit screen, but of course when I go back now they are all gone and I can't find them.

Ahhh, here we go:


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo/comments/1p6zh88/purple_blob/
Click to expand...

Huh, a more precise location than Chicago suburb from the OP would help.

There are some comments about Wrigley Field installing color-tunable LED lights for improved television coverage in 2023 and residents complaining about them being left on after games until the middle of the night, and the color sometimes being blue:

1764194231395.png


However, that doesn't immediately address why the light would only be visible on camera and not to the naked eye, but I'm seeing vague suggestions that camera sensors are more tuned to that blue range than the human eye.

Nothing definitive and it would help to have specific locations to rule Wrigley or other stadiums in or out.

(On Facebook, one of the people complaining about the blue light insists its not Wrigley field, since it's to her east and over the lake, though the home address that comes up for her unique name is two miles directly west of Wrigley.)
 
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Hmmm... trying to think of reasons why some holiday decorations would have a lot of UV ?black light" up-lighting... I can't yet find good examples of Christmas holiday displays using black light stuff, but there could be...
 
deirdre said:
there's a phone number on the dental building:

View attachment 86582
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Smiles+Dental+Center/@42.0591047,-87.9266298,19z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x880fb7562e8dc68b:0x4709089d965e741c!8m2!3d42.0591296!4d-87.926442!16s/g/1232ncp8j?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTEyMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
Click to expand...

One candidate in that direction is the Chicago Botanical Garden Lightscape, which has plenty of up-pointing lights in suspiciously similar colors: https://www.chicagobotanic.org/lightscape
1764204036967.png


Though that's nine miles away, which seems a bit of a throw:
1764204173274.png


Though one of the collateral posters said they saw similar sky glow in Wilmington, Delaware, which has its own outdoor light festival going on:
1764204536714.png
 
For this blue Chicago light from seven months ago, one of the commenters said they hunted it down and this light was definitely Wrigley Field.

In the wrong direction for the OP on this one.
1764205195535.png
 
I'm not sure how high this type of cloud is, but when I want to visualize a projection on google maps I create a large polygon on the ground and then I set it at a certain height.

For example, this is a purple polygon above the nearby mall, at 800 meters (with a bigger grey polygon above to simulate cloudy sky)
1764208974037.png

While this is one above the botanical garden 2km in the sky
1764209212328.png


1764209246089.png


I've done no research on if the mall or one of the several big stores around the area might have some spotlights for some event.
 
deirdre said:
maybe. im not good at spatial stuff and angles. but i do see that the bulk of the sky seems covered in dark storm clouds.

does this help you?
https://contrailscience.com/how-far-away-is-that-contrail/

add: @Mick West has a thread of the same here on MB but i can't find it with search.
Click to expand...
Hmm, cloud cover at O'Hare, which is just a couple miles south of the dentist office, ranged from 1100 to 3300 feet that night, so a long range seems unlikely, and this light looks roughly 30-45 degrees off the horizon, which would put a ground source about 1 to 2 miles away at the most.

One candidate in the right direction and distance is the Nicholas Sportsplex, which has outdoor fields as well as an ice rink. Whether they had lights that might cause this radiance remain speculative...
1764209415234.png

... though they did host an adult hockey game:
1764209685517.png

But I would think a neighbor would have seen this effect before, all other things being equal.
 
jdog said:
However, that doesn't immediately address why the light would only be visible on camera and not to the naked eye, but I'm seeing vague suggestions that camera sensors are more tuned to that blue range than the human eye.
Click to expand...
Most of the images seem to be taken using the "night mode" on phone cameras. That mode really amplifies any colour in the sky, even when it is not visible to the naked eye. For example last month I had an alert from an aurora app saying that aurora might be visible from my location. I couldn't see anything when looking to my north but my phone in night mode picked up some pink and green colours:

1764232998257.png
 
jdog said:
But I would think a neighbor would have seen this effect before, all other things being equal.
Click to expand...
one wonders what they were taking pictures of in the first place if they didn't know it was there. :) meaning if she couldn't see it with a naked eye, she likely wouldn't have seen it before.
 
Maury Markowitz said:
they report they are only visible on camera.
Click to expand...
Maury Markowitz said:
And another:


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NJDrones/comments/1p2c1t9/weird_blue_light_in_sky_lots_of_plane_activity_ln/
Click to expand...

I'm very confused.

The purple blobs are supposedly not visible to the naked eye. [Post #7]

But your next example [Post #8] appears to reference a phenomenon in the sky which is very visible.
(and "very very purple" is now "blue" in the Wilmington example).

So are they visible or not?
If not, are large numbers of Redditors just taking lame pix of clouds, only to later notice colored blobs in them?

After [Post #7] I was trying to think of something camera-related that could explain it
(there is a photo thing called "purple fringing," but it doesn't look like this. Lens flare looks different, too.

But after [Post #8] I'm totally lost, as it appears that these blobs are actually visible... :confused:
 
NoParty said:
So are they visible or not?
If not, are large numbers of Redditors just taking lame pix of clouds, only to later notice colored blobs in them?
Click to expand...
That might not be as strange as it first sounds.

First, with recent aurora activity, I saw lots of social media posts saying "Even if you can't see them by eye, try looking through your phone, sometimes you can see them that way." So we are in a moment where a lot of people have just been told to try checking out what their phone might capture in the sky that they can't see.

Also, once it's become a thing on Reddit, it is not too surprising that other folks go out and try it.


Examples of social media posts about taking pictures of invisible aurora...

delme.jpg
delme2.jpg
 
deirdre said:
can you do Willows Hill GOlf Course 6.7 miles away? the angle might be too far off even with the cloud cover. just curious about distance.
Click to expand...


This is at 2km (so twice as height as the clouds are meant to be)
1764262439248.png

But that's putting the camera somewhere else to get a better look. From an angle that better matches the photo, it's too to the right (and if it were at 1000 meters, it would be way lower)
1764262369394.png



I think the OP was looking a lot more north than northeast, so if it's coming from the ground, I'd guess it's somewhere in the red circle (depending on the height of the clouds)

1764262868678.png
 
JMartJr said:
That might not be as strange as it first sounds.

First, with recent aurora activity, I saw lots of social media posts saying "Even if you can't see them by eye, try looking through your phone, sometimes you can see them that way." So we are in a moment where a lot of people have just been told to try checking out what their phone might capture in the sky that they can't see.

Also, once it's become a thing on Reddit, it is not too surprising that other folks go out and try it.


Examples of social media posts about taking pictures of invisible aurora...

View attachment 86610View attachment 86614
Click to expand...

I guess we all have a data-gathering excuse to get out of the house and away from the relatives tonight!
 
jdog said:
However, that doesn't immediately address why the light would only be visible on camera and not to the naked eye, but I'm seeing vague suggestions that camera sensors are more tuned to that blue range than the human eye.
Click to expand...

It's becoming quite widely realised that it's much easier to "see" aurora using a camphone than with the naked eye; sometimes the phone will capture aurora that the filmer/ photographer can't see.

"Why the Aurora Borealis Is Better Viewed Through a Phone Camera Than with the Naked Eye", Technodee website 11 October 2024 https://technodee.com/why-the-auror...rough-a-phone-camera-than-with-the-naked-eye/:

External Quote:
The camera sensors of phone cameras are quite different [to the human eye]. Even in dim light conditions, the camera sensor can pick up more color and details than our eyes can. Well, for one, cameras can "see" the reds, purples, and deeper greens that our eyes might miss in the aurora, thus making it more dramatic in photos. Another factor is that cameras can be adjusted to allow longer exposure times, thus capturing more light and detail in one image, thereby enhancing the appearance of the aurora.

"Phone cameras can take in more light than the human eye − that's why low-light events like the northern lights often look better through your phone camera", Douglas Goodwin (a professor of computational photography), The Conversation website https://theconversation.com/phone-c...-look-better-through-your-phone-camera-230068
External Quote:

If you saw the northern lights during the geomagnetic storms in May 2024, you might have noticed that your smartphone made the photos look even more vivid than reality.

...Human eyes are remarkable. ...However, your eyes perform less impressively in low light. [An explanation about the relative insensitivity of the eye's cone receptor cells in low light follows].
...Smartphones... ...use multiple cameras and advanced sensors to gather more light than the human eye can, even in low-light conditions. They achieve this through longer exposure times – how long the camera takes in light – larger apertures and increasing the ISO, the amount of light your camera lets in. ...They also leverage computational photography to enhance your images using digital techniques and algorithms.

... While the human eye struggles to fully appreciate the northern lights' otherworldly hues at night, modern smartphone cameras overcome this limitation. By leveraging AI and computational photography techniques, your devices allow you to see the bold colors of solar storms in the atmosphere, boosting color and capturing otherwise invisible details that even the keenest eye will miss.
-I'm not suggesting the coloured lights seen are aurora (though maybe some are), but the explanations of why aurora are more visible, and more colourful, via cellphone cameras aren't dependent on aurora-specific factors; they depend on camphones being better at "seeing" colours in low light.
Maybe reflected/ refracted light in the evening sky, that would otherwise be almost unnoticeable, is being noticed more because of the widespread use of phonecams.

If so, this leaves us with a problem: Most if not all of the evidence for this phenomenon will be recorded by phonecams (or superior equipment).
Maybe the patches of magenta light in the photos we've seen are evidence of widespread phonecam use and the difference between what they show and what we can see.
 
Calter said:
(so twice as height as the clouds are meant to be)
Click to expand...
do we have verification of a date? or a time?

Calter said:
I think the OP was looking a lot more north than northeast,
Click to expand...
me too really, just didn't want to look for more christmas light displays again :) We did that last year. saw the big purple tower on my first quick search and thought.. huh.

There is Reds Nursery in the "right" direction at 6.5 miles but i didnt find any indication of grow lights.
 
Since posting this I have seen many similar posts on Reddit, not just in the UFO related subs, but also in the ones about local areas like town and city subs. Of course I'm always on my phone at the time in the app and fail to write down the URLs (there seems to be no obvious way to do this). I'll post additional examples as I find them.

But in the meantime, no, this is absolutely not aurora. It is always when the sky is cloud covered. It's something on the ground, and in one case a beam is visible.
 
Maury Markowitz said:
Since posting this I have seen many similar posts on Reddit, not just in the UFO related subs, but also in the ones about local areas like town and city subs. Of course I'm always on my phone at the time in the app and fail to write down the URLs (there seems to be no obvious way to do this). I'll post additional examples as I find them.

But in the meantime, no, this is absolutely not aurora. It is always when the sky is cloud covered. It's something on the ground, and in one case a beam is visible.
Click to expand...
You can 'save' reddit threads and your phone will have browser history, often if you use something like Chrome on your phone and PC the history is sync'd.
 
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