The white aurora – the Internet’s most successful aurora hoax
Every year about this time, I start seeing photos of an incredible white aurora. It’s hard to imagine how many million times these 3 photos have been posted, often as “The Hem of His Garment” Aurora Borealis in Finland, but they’ve also been posted as the aurora in the Yukon, in Alaska, etc.
As you can tell by the title of this post, though, the photos don’t show the aurora borealis – the images were created using a fluorescent light.
The images were created by a person in Russia with the username “NeverSmile.” He posted them (and 9 more) at https://www.yaplakal.com/ on July 16, 2010. A screenshot is below. Thanks to Iron Head Jane for finding that site.
The post starts off by saying “A fluorescent lamp can glow not only from a direct supply of electricity, but also from a powerful electromagnetic field located next to the lamp. What we decided to check, well, and my favorite photography style: Long exposure.”
The images really are amazing, but I wish they would be shared for what they are – light art, not the aurora borealis.
p.s. – there are no white auroras. What you are seeing is not actually white but most likely a pale green. To quote Dr. Tony Phillips at SpaceWeather, “Auroras get their colors from specific elements in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Green auroras, for instance, come from atomic oxygen; blue is associated with molecular nitrogen. No element produces white.”
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This is post #1,419 since I started the blog on April 25, 2006 – 862 of them have now been rebuilt into the new format, with 14,327 photos.
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