Strange Sunset – crepuscular rays by Craig Downing

Waaay back in the day, I used to do “Weird Wednesday” features, often in conjunction with my friend & Weird Michigan author Linda Godfrey. She passed a few years ago, but some of her work lives on at LindaGodfrey.com.

This isn’t one of Linda’s stories, but I thought I’d share it for old times sake. Via the Mutual UFO Network:

I am now age 78 but when I was about 6 or 7 and messing in the dirt with ants on the dirt dead-end road in back of the cottage about 10 miles outside of Ludington, Michigan, I saw a saucer like object flying toward me; it then stopped over Hamlin Lake (near Ludington) and after a second, went back the way it came from the other side of Hamlin Lake and on perhaps in the direction of Lake Michigan. It didn’t make any noise and I didn’t see any windows. It just looked like a flying saucer.

The speed was relatively slow and it seemed to stop for a moment over about the middle of the lake there and then reverse course going back in the direction it had come as if to say, “Oh, I’m going in the wrong direction” I don’t know why I recall this event today as if it happened yesterday. I wish I didn’t. I recently saw on T.V. the Lake Michigan triangle between Benton Harbor, Manitowac and Ludington.

You can head over to MUFON for more reports.

As to what was actually happening over to Hamlin Lake, the Sunrays – Crepuscular rays page at Atmospheric Optics explains:

Sun rays, also called crepuscular rays, streaming through gaps in clouds are parallel columns of sunlit air separated by darker cloud shadowed regions. The rays appear to diverge because of perspective effects, like the parallel furrows of freshly ploughed fields or a road wide at your feet yet apparently narrowing with distance. Airborne dust, inorganic salts, organic aerosols, small water droplets and the air molecules themselves scatter the sunlight and make the rays visible.

View Craig’s photo bigger and see more in his Ludington slideshow.

Lots more Michigan weirdness on Michigan in Pictures!