In the astronomy community, I hear a lot of stories of laypeople seeing something in the night sky, not knowing what it is, and immediately jumping to the conclusion that it's aliens. Thing is, it's never aliens (as my longsuffering astro buddy Chris Lintott continually reminds us). And there's a lot of other stuff you need to rule out before you can start to think it might be aliens.
Which is why I made this handy flowchart to help you identify what you saw in the night sky! While it may never be aliens, there are a lot of fascinating objects to see in the heavens. Go out and learn more about the stars!
Sad but true story: In 1994, a large earthquake in Los Angeles in the wee hours of the morning left large parts of the city without power. Police and fire stations received frantic phone calls from people claiming that something strange was happening to the sky and wondering if the earthquake caused it.
They were seeing the Milky Way for the first time because of the greatly reduced light pollution.
Let's not have a repeat of this.
As an aside, I grew up in Los Angeles and remember that earthquake quite well. 0/10, would not recommend.
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