Home   News   Article

How would we face a real Armageddon scenario?





The stars in the night sky can seem almost supernatural.
The stars in the night sky can seem almost supernatural.

SOURCES tell me confusion set in amongst some of the diners in a local French restaurant last week when the town was plunged into darkness following a power cut.

Their stories made me wonder just how quickly panic – even hysteria – could set in if we ever had to face a real Armageddon-type scenario...

One of the immediate dilemmas to confront the young diners was their loss of contact with the outside world when mobile phone networks – an absolutely essential facility for the younger generation – seemingly collapsed.

One of those diners was my youngest daughter, Alison. As they sat in pitch blackness wondering what had happened it seems her mind ran away with her and she began to contemplate an apocalyptic world’s end situation.

At the other end of her table a close friend, let’s just call her Kirsty, assumed the arrival of restaurant staff bearing candles was a cue to burst into a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" (for some unsuspecting fellow diner). Not so.

So I imagine there was combination of uneasy laughter and a slightly disconcerting "what-on-earth-is-happening" bemusement as giggles led to awkward silence.

But no worries, within 10 minutes or so normal services were resumed. The street lights revealed there had been no nuclear strikes or catastrophic meltdown at the nearby atomic power plant. As you were people.

As one online blogger commented on the Groat/Courier website: "The dark sky that resulted from the power cut was magnificent. We should do this regularly."

I tend to agree. Well, not so much about the need for regular power cuts but, yes, the starry constellations that presented themselves as I looked out my window, wondering if it was just me or if others were in the same boat, too, were, frankly, astounding!

As I gazed up in wonder at the quite breathtaking heavenly firmament I did think "this is better than the X-Factor any day!"

I was transported back to a primary school trip I undertook with fellow classmates of Wick North Primary class seven. More than 40 years ago I can tell you. Blimey, where did all those years go?!

We had gone to the nation’s capital city to do all the sight-seeing stuff and well do I remember a visit to the London Planetarium. There a very special machine "an opto-mechanical star projector", no less, "offered the audience a show based on a view of the night sky as seen from earth".

It was an especially evocative time for us all as, just the year before, Neil Armstrong (alas, he is no longer with us) walked on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

So sitting back, necks craning at the overhead dome, we watched and listened as we embarked on a truly overwhelming journey through the universe. Amazing.

(The planetarium was taken over in recent years by its next-door neighbour, Madame Tussauds, which needed more space to house our apparent collective obsession with celebrities, rather than science. I guess it’s what we call progress.)

So looking up to the night sky with the town plunged in darkness was, for me, a rather unexpected bonus. Not since I had last visited Hoy, in Orkney, a couple of years back had I seen such a crystal clear display. I was transfixed.

It made me think about our present-day neuroses with global warming, energy consumption, carbon footprints, renewables, you name it. We want the lights to stay on, on the one hand, and can, on the other, bemoan the impact of light pollution.

It was only when we were quite literally powerless that we were forced to see our world in a new perspective.

Yes, I know, just a few miles out in the country similar sights can be seen on virtually any clear night. But from the perspective of complete pitch blackness the stars in the night sky seemed not just captivating but almost supernatural.

Maybe I’ve been "a townie" too long!

I imagined our ancient forefathers and the world that they lived in thousands of years ago. What sense did they make of it all, I wonder, as they gazed up at the night sky? I doubt if our own modern-day interpretations are that much more sophisticated...

You could imagine them gathering around winter fires at standing stone rows at Achavanich ("the field of the monks") where they ceremoniously assembled during these long dark winter days. The wise ones, who gazed and read the stars, had doubtless foretold of the imminent advent of the season of rebirth.

The night sky, like a slowly revolving big wheel, was heralding the winter solstice.

In just three weeks’ time we will have broken the back of the long dark nights. The shortest day will pass and ever so slowly the sun will increasingly return. And just like our ancestors we can move out from the shadow lands and welcome the prospect of a new year and all that it holds for us.

I wonder, though, if panic or even hysteria set in back in those olden times when, just occasionally, they were confronted with a lunar eclipse that plunged their world into darkness?

I somehow doubt they spontaneously burst into a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday"...


Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.


This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More