The State : Lights in Sky Spark Calls

Emergency agencies throughout the northern two-thirds of California received a spate of citizen telephone calls reporting flashing lights in the sky. Officials with the state Office of Emergency Services said people were seeing the aurora borealis, commonly known as the Northern Lights. Chuck Young, a warning controller for the OES, said that under normal circumstances the Northern Lights are seen only as far south as the Canadian border. Emergency agencies as far south as the central San Joaquin Valley reported getting calls from citizens reporting the lights. “Most of the callers thought it was probably a missile fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base, or something like that,” a Tulare County sheriff’s deputy said. “But there were a couple of callers who said they were afraid we were being invaded or something.”