A mysterious ring of light appeared around the Sun along with trails of condensation in the sky over Galveston this past weekend, sparking a slew of conspiracies about their origins.
From the 10th floor of a building near 89th Street and Seawall Boulevard, resident Tony Reyna captured photos of what some described “looked like a portal” to another world on the horizon around 2 p.m. on Friday. The phenomenon occurred the day after the rise of the Hunter’s Moon, October’s supermoon.
Reyna shared the photos in a Galveston Facebook group where it garnered nearly 1,000 likes. In the more than 100 comments in response, which included bible verses, some suggested the ring could be a bad omen, while others falsely claimed the government was spraying chemicals over the area.
“Something is fixing to happen,” one person wrote. “We now have HAARP…CHEM TRAILS…CLOUD SEEDING…and our newest addition to the Sun simulator…of course. Only those with eyes TO see will see what’s really going and being done TO US ALL,” another wrote, in a particularly egregious untrue claim that the Sun is an illusion.
“So nobody knows about chem trails,” another added. “It’d be sooo much prettier with a clear blue sky… I remember growing up in Houston with skies like Facebook blue, now that we get sprayed with the chem trails, we rarely ever get a day with clear blue skies.”
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In reality, the halo-like phenomenon is aptly known as a Sun halo. Luckily, several commenters guessed as such under Reyna’s post. The ring or light forms around the Sun as light from our home star refracts off ice crystals present in a thin veil of cirrus clouds.
The halo, which can also sometimes be observed around the moon, is usually seen as a bright, white ring, although sometimes it can have color. Its frequency depends on atmospheric conditions and the prevalence of ice crystals in clouds. “It’s the third one I’ve seen in my lifetime averaging 1.5 per decade,” Reyna told Chron.
As far as the cloud-like trails seen around the Sun, those are long water condensation trails left behind by high-flying aircraft. They are created when hot vapor emitted by a jet engine following combustion cools and condenses in Earth’s atmosphere. They usually dissipate quickly, but when the humidity is high, contrails last much longer.
Chemtrail conspiracy theorists, like a few found in Reyna’s comments, falsely believe these condensation trails are full of toxic chemicals spread by the government to manipulate the weather or control people’s minds. The conspiracy theory has been widely debunked, including in a 2016 study that found no evidence of unusual contrails or unexplained contamination in the environment. Despite this, the erroneous belief has persisted.
So, no, the government isn’t spraying chemicals over Galveston and the light ring around the Sun doesn’t mean the end of the world is coming. Oh, and the Sun is real. In regards to the wild theories, Reyna simply replied: “People are ‘entertaining.'”
