My artist’s rendering of our night siting.
It was around 4am, mid-September at the South Yuba Campground northeast of Nevada City. Natalie and I were sleeping happily. Then nature called (both of us—I guess it was a conference call). As we headed out into the chilly night air to take care of business, I said, “Hey, look, there’s Jupiter.” Fairly low on the horizon, east-southeast of us floated a bright white light. “Wow, it’s really twinkling.”
“It looks green,” observed Natalie. “Yeah, I does look like it’s twinkling green,” I said, struck by the brightness of it. I can’t remember exactly how it went from here. I think Natalie said, “It looks like it’s moving.” I looked again. “Oh my God, it does. It’s totally moving.” And we watched through the trees as this blinking, twinkling thing hovered and moved, paused and moved again. Read the rest of this entry »