Photo taken by netizen Marc Nacpil
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – An internet photo of a purple and pink sky that hovered over this city last Nov. 14 has, as of yesterday, been shared 4,021 times by netizens and generated comments that mostly spelled doomsday.
Netizen Marc Nacpil took the photo that seemed to focus on the Ferris wheel at SM City Pampanga, but obviously was meant to convey the peculiarity of the sky in the background. It was shot last Nov. 14.
One netizen reacted by saying: “In the Ilocano tradition and in other culture, pink skies means a strong disaster is coming like typhoon and many are going to die. But this is only a belief, what matters most is we know how to pray and to seek God’s grace for us for our fellow Filipino and the whole world. God bless us all.”
Yet, another commented: “Purple skies mean different things. Usually it means a storm is coming, or it’s just an odd quirk of the sun setting, but some people believe it has a different, more spiritual meaning. Some people think it means death is close, or that a lot of people somewhere died.”
“There’s a storm coming. In Japan pinkish and purple sky appears before typhoon Hagibis hits Japan at least 40 people died,” said another netizen.
With a scientific perspective, another netizen explained: “Occasionally, pink and purple will appear more often than red and orange due in part to the optical illusion of the pink wavelengths lighting up the base of the cloud (due to the low angle of the sun’s rays), and these pink clouds superimposed on a dark blue sky.
And this phenomena (sic) is called SCATTERING.”
Another science-minded netizen shared this quote: “Pink sky might occur because the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more air at sunset and sunrise than during the day, when the sun is higher in the sky.” — Professor Steven Ackerman of UW-Madison.”
But sky events similar to the San Fernando phenomenon last Nov. 14 are occurring more frequently worldwide. Doomsayers are not short of comments, while scientists, who are wont to give scientific explanation to all natural phenomena, have started to be more honest more with what they feel than what they think, because some phenomena seem to defy known natural patterns.
Of course, the Bible cannot be left out. Luke 21:25 had this to say about the skies, if not the clouds: “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves.”
Distress of nations is another story, but that seems to be erupting more prominently in our times.
