A woman who was flying over British Columbia on Sunday night got a unique view of the northern lights.
Kayla Lar-Son was on a Flair Airlines flight from Edmonton to Abbotsford when the cabin crew made an announcement that the aurora borealis would be visible. The time was 11:45 p.m.
"They started off really small and then kept getting bigger and brighter,” says Lar-Son. "You could really see them dancing and they seemed to move from one side of the plane to the other."
She was able to see the spectacle for about 15 minutes.
Viewing the northern lights from a plane gave her a different perspective that only a few people get to experience, she says.
“Seeing them so bright from the plane is something that I might never get to experience ever again in my life,” Lar-Son tells Glacier Media.
The northern lights are caused by energized particles from the sun hitting the Earth’s upper atmosphere. People from Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and the Interior reported seeing the lights.
Photographer timed it perfectly
Anthony Bucci spends a lot of time chasing aurora borealis and has been waiting for years to document it.
Sunday night was his perfect chance.
Bucci was outside from 7 p.m. until 2:30 a.m. in Port McNeill on Vancouver Island and took over 1,200 images. He says he's constantly glued to the weather, waiting for a clear-sky opportunity.
"I'm still editing," he says on Monday afternoon.
The northern Vancouver Island resident has tons of photos of the northern lights but nothing like what he captured on Sunday.
"Aurora exploded overhead, shimmering and flashing like I've never seen on northern Vancouver Island," he says. "Stuff you see in places like Alberta, Saskatchewan, Norway... but here? Wow!"
For the people who saw the show, he hopes they understand just how special it was.
"You may never see a storm that intense again for northern Vancouver Island," he says. "This is coming from someone that spends countless hours, days and months sitting outside hoping for a glimpse of aurora."
The northern lights have left him 'speechless' and in shock of what he captured on camera.
"This was truly a geomagnetic storm I will never forget," he says.
Jasspreet Sahib noticed a faint green glow in the distance from her home in Port McNeill on Sunday night.
At first, she thought it was light from pollution.
“I turned the lights in my living room off and kept staring outside the window from my home,” she says. “Soon after, the northern lights had moved in a lot closer to Port McNeill and it felt like they were right above us.”
The dancing stars turned the whole sky from black to greens and red, she says.
“It was breathtaking and emotional,” says Sahib.
She captured a photo of the show just before 11 p.m.
“It was a dream come true for me! I kept running outside in my gum boots to observe them from the backyard every time they brightened up,” she says.
If you saw the northern lights and have photographs or want to share your experience, please email reporter Alanna Kelly at [email protected].
