Earthquake Lights: The Glow in the Sky That Science Refused to Believe

2026-07-21 · Nature Defying Explanation · 8 min read

On the evening of November 12, 1988, people living along the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City looked up and saw a bright globe of pink-purple light crossing the sky. It was low, and it was silent. It did not flash and disappear the way lightning does. Witnesses described a steady, deliberate drift toward the north-northeast, following the line of the river, lasting two or three full minutes before the light simply went out.

Thirteen days later, at 6:46 on the evening of November 25, a magnitude-5.9 earthquake struck the Saguenay region roughly 150 kilometres to the north. It was the strongest tremor eastern Canada had felt in decades and was registered across much of the continent. A magnitude-4.8 foreshock had arrived two days earlier, in the small hours of November 23. Between November 1988 and the end of January 1989 the region produced sixty-seven separate earthquakes.

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