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OF NORTHERN LIGHTS AND GROANS FROM THE EARTH AND TURMOIL: DISCERNMENT RESTS BEST IN THE BIBLE

It was just after 9/11 and before the U.S. began a series of wars that there was a great display of the northern lights, just as the northern lights -- the aurora borealis -- served as a harbinger, as the "great sign," foreseen at Fatima as preceding a war (this occurred on January 25-26, 1938, described in The New York Times as a "curtain of fire" across the Atlantic; seen from Europe to Africa to North America).

There was also a tremendous display of the aurora in 1871, shortly before the Germans neared western France in another war, and just before the historic and Church-approved apparitions in France of the Virgin in Pontmain, producing fear and awe in many. Some reported the evening lights as tall masts of ships and others claimed them to look like the steeples of a great cathedral. The worst fear came with an earthquake at about half past twelve the day of January 17th. There was great fear. Typhoid had erupted and smallpox threatened. Everything seemed doomed (noted one website), but prayer inspired by the Virgin there at Pontmain kept the area from a German takeover.

The northern lights are back in the news -- not in such an unprecedented display, but prominent again as much swirls, and roils, around us.

It is not the end of the world. It is a time of turmoil. It is a time of special turmoil, which will continue as a preface to purification, simplification, and huge events, in the world.

That's our take.

It has occurred, at special times (see the High Middle Ages), throughout history.

The end times -- or the end of a time?

Now, there are the lights seen in many regions and also truly odd reports of unusual, haunting, trumpet-like, grinding, mechanical, groaning type noises, which some describe as coming from the sky while others say they seem to be coming from deep in the earth.

Is it a true phenomenon or an artifact of the internet (especially YouTube)?

Something seems to be occurring. Some of the reports, perhaps many of them, may be hoaxes. It is easy to dub sound. It is easy to "photo-shop." Everyone has a camera and a keyboard.

But there are too many to explain every one in this way, especially when local authorities -- police, mayors, scientists -- hear them also and are also baffled. A recent one comes from Terrace, British Columbia in Canada -- eerie stuff. It is all over the secular news. In fact there have been dozens of television reports across North America during the past two years about these sounds, which are almost like something out of a sci-fi movie. In the case of Terrace, one local official vows to prove it was simply public-work laborers sharpening a road grader nearby, and we will see if this indeed does fully explain it (stay tuned).

Residents are skeptical. They believe what they heard was far different and louder than noise from road machinery, a train, or anything else so tangible. More compellingly, the sounds match others in places like Chicago, Minnesota, and elsewhere in Canada, notably Conklin, Alberta, three hundred miles away, where the sounds were heard near no road crew but in the middle of an isolated forest, virtually identical: as if something subterranean was straining and about to break loose. Some claim they have heard the sounds just before or after earthquakes (as there was an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska in proximity to the alleged Terrace report). Some relate it to the ancient shofar horn used as warning in Israel. Let's set aside Terrace. Perhaps that will indeed turn out to be a road grader. Let's set aside half the reports. There are still many dozens. One scientist speculated that the sounds may even be related to the northern lights (positing that electromagnetism from the sun, which causes the aurora, could be vibrating our atmosphere).

The Mormons believe in a passage called Moses 7:48: "And it came to pass that Enoch looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels thereof, saying: Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children."

Something groans -- somehow, somewhere. We'll leave Enoch out of it. Every once in a while, someone takes off after all the "end-of-the-world" prophecies, pointing out, rightly, that such expectations have been around for many centuries and have been frustrated by the course of events. The world certainly did not end, despite countless expectations going back to right after the Resurrection.

We agree: It's counter-productive to expect that. We don't believe, and never have, that the world is about to end. Equally counter-productive are those (often those making the aforesaid complaint) who lump it all together, taking every indication of purification or chastisement or a sign and connecting it with the most extreme prophecies.

But events loom, no matter what is bruited about in quasi-"ivory" towers (or the blogosphere).

Here is today's Mass reading (1 Thessalonians 5:1-6): "Concerning times and seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, 'Peace and security,' then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief. For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober."