The Northern Lights Aren’t What You Think

People post photos of the northern lights and you start to build this idea in your head — like the sky is about to explode into neon paint and crackling energy the second you step outside. You see those bright, glowing streaks on social media and think, okay, cool, I’m about to walk into a cosmic laser show.

But the northern lights aren’t what you think.
They’re quieter, bigger, softer — and somehow more miraculous because of it.

I heard the lights might show up tonight, but honestly, I forgot all about it. Around 10:30 I opened Facebook and saw Aaron’s photo — this wild, bright, glowing sky — and his post basically said, “happening right now.”

That was all it took. I grabbed my coat, slipped on my garage gloves (cause, I was in the garage), hopped on my OneWheel, and headed toward the lake. The air had a sharp little bite to it, the kind you like on this type of late-night adventure.

When I got down there, my eyes could tell something was different, but nothing even close to what Aaron’s picture looked like. I saw faint streaks… hints… almost like the sky was stretching. The second I pulled out my phone and took a photo — boom — the colors appeared. Greens and pinks showing up on the screen like the sky was alive.

But without the phone?
In real life?
It was way darker, way more muted.

The camera gave me vibrancy, but as they adjusted my eyes gave me scale. I could see those streaks shooting two, three times higher than what the phone could expose for — huge vertical columns fading into the black, shifting quietly across half the sky.

It was one of those moments where reality and technology played different roles. The phone showed me the color; my eyes showed me the size. Both beautiful in their own way, both limited. And yeah — the photos everyone posts make it look like you’re standing under neon paint dripped from heaven. Maybe it’s like that in Alaska, with human eyes. But from Grass Lake tonight, it was more of a whispered version — softer, but still massive and alive.

You chase the bright colors you see online, and what you find instead is something quieter but somehow bigger — a whole sky stretching upward in ways technology can’t quite capture.

Fun experience.
8 out of 10.