I was on a hill next to LAX that night; and while the earthquake was terrifying, seeing a city-sized international port of entry go entirely black and silent was absolutely scary. It was unearthly to see something as constantly bright and loud as Las Vegas just go dead. That being said, this episode is the funniest one I have seen so far, and has given me a chance to look back and laugh at that otherwise frightening night. Good grief, why am I craving sugar and Glow-sticks now?
Makes sense. I was in New York during the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003; it felt apocalyptic. I was also in Austin, TX during Winter Storm Uri, which also felt apocalyptic for different reasons...
What is the point of this video? It’s just minutes and minutes of these people throwing out dumb answers probably to extend the video past the 10 minute sweet spot for RUclips. Was I the only one irritated the main dude wouldn’t get to the point??
@@sanguine2552The entire point of this show (that he doesn't really explain because this is a clip of the show) is to get some guests on and ask them a question that they have to figure out the answer to. And it usually involves "lateral thinking", which is why the show is named Lateral.
Tom - A 6.7 earthquake is very strong! I was living close to the epicenter at the time. It felt and sounded like a freight train going through my ground floor apartment. The Northridge earthquake initially caused power outage to 2.3 million people, a few freeway overpasses fell down, a parking structure collapsed, 57 people died, and there was damage over a large area. And yes, the dark sky was one of the things I was in awe over! It was beautiful.
I think that's what he meant. Like it was bad, but not too devastating. Cause a 6.7 is gonna be felt a hell of a lot harder in LA than in the middle of the desert.
@@maxbracegirdle9990 Although a 6.7 would probably completely destroy a city like London that doesn't have the same earthquake safety building codes, since they don't really get any earthquakes.
@@ifiveohLED’s create more Light pollution some how? As far as I understand it, it comes down to lamp type/which way the light is directed. LEDs pointed directly down, are superior to all other options as far as reducing light pollution goes. It was heavily studied in the County of Moorpark, the findings were publicly released and available. It was an interesting read as I recall!
There have been sugar plants that exploded after something knocked a bunch of sugar dust into the air. The sugar cloud scenario is as chilling as the prospect of a dense enough cloud outside of the plant is unlikely.
I made a joke about it being the milky way at the start and was suprised i was right. I only knew the story second hand as a story about people living their entire life in high density urban areas. So i just knew it as a generic power outage not that the outage was caused by an earthquake.
I was standing a motel parking lot during that earthquake. It was like surfing the concrete slab with the sound of car alarms and flashes from exploding transformers.
Aaaaaaaaaand before anyone says anything about this detail (spoilers below) This is before cell phones were quite as ubiquitous, so everyone had a landline phone. Land line phone systems or "POTS" lines had their own power system separate from the traditional grid for emergencies. So power is out, phones work, and people get confused about stars.
and theres still a lot of landlines in houses- most people still have them. You can charge your cell from them with the right illegal gadgets, even if you don't pay for service
I always thought that this was an urban legend, a sort of hippie morality tale about how disconnected we have become to our true roots as a species, going from creating mythology based on the specific arrangement of the celestial bodies in a clear night sky, to becoming so inundated with nocturnal light that a sizeable proportion of city-dwellers have never seen the Milky Way. But I looked it up, and there are actual, reliable sources for the story. Says a lot about the state of humanity, I think.
But doesn't it have to be really really dark to actually see the whole milky way clearly? I've been in the Finnish archipelago on clear nights, and only in the most remote place I know have I seen the slightest bit of milky way.
@@alvinrasmus6674 it doesn't have to be really dark, just as few cloud as possible, no smog (easier if you are on the west of deserts) and no light pollution (easier if the entire grid is down), also it's around 2 am so pollutions are dissipated most of the time
I live near LA and remember that earthquake (vaguely). I was in high school that year. No power loss where I lived, so the Milky Way stayed hidden for me. But he's right, normally we can't see it at all. Maybe 50 total stars on a clear night. And many nights we get a marine layer which prevents seeing anything. Regarding how strong it feels: it's not just the magnitude, it's how close you are to the epicenter. I think I was at least 30 miles away, so not as bad for me as someone who lived above it. But a 6.7 is pretty strong. Anything over 5 will be a good jolt if you are close enough. "Bad but not devastating" is a good summary. Last note: 1994 was definitely a year for LA. We had: the earthquake, wildfires, floods, and riots that year. I think someone made a t-shirt with that as our 4 seasons on it.
I was in the San Fernando Valley when that quake hit. It was my first! I went outside ('cause you know, you just have to; I guess) and the sky actually weirded me out. I had a moment of trying to figure out how an earthquake could make the sky look just wrong. It took me about 10 seconds to realize that I should not be able to see stars like Deep in the Heart of Texas (where I'm from) stars. I could hear people yelling in pain because things large and small fell on them so I knew 911 was busy with things more important than soothing my rattled nerves.
i wouldn't be surprised if it happened more and more, especially after they started using these white led streetlights. It's getting BRIGHT at night now- if you go to a secluded canyon in the hills and let your eyes adjust, you can just about read from the city light of the west valley and the Conejo Valley
@@NoNameAtAll2 that makes sense, like you could expect that, but its not whats actually happening. The skyglow has changed from sodium-orange to white and has gotten objectively brighter with the same telescope camera and exposure time/gain
Reduce most things to a powder and they'll be highly flammable. RUclips seems to drop posts with links in them, but search for "QI custard explosion" or "Mythbusters coffee creamer"
I've heard the story before, but I only remembered about it after hearing the answer. And I feel like this could happen in a lot of big cities, I think similar calls happened in NY during their blackout?
I have seen clouds of candy floss (or cotton candy as we call it). In college, they had a cotton candy maker on the quad one windy day with no wind shield on it. I bought one cotton candy, and then got a full size refill just by scooping the cotton candy that was blowing in the air.
This is a tragic reminder that there are people who have never seen the night sky for its true beauty. We need more dark zones or a few hours a month where all lights in a town/city are off.
@@korganrocks3995 yeah, this was my bet and also went unmarked in my LA stereotype bingo card along with violence, traffic jams and the Red Hot Chilly Peppers
The second of the Christchurch earthquakes was magnitude 6.3 and centred almost right under the city. It felt *very* strong. There was a big, heavy CRT monitor on my desk, and it was bouncing around like crazy. I had to put my hand out to stop it from jumping off.
I don't remember this but I would have been a kid at the time. I do remember TV ads for when the Mega Millions lottery was introduced into California and they featured a huge lottery ticket flying through the sky as people freaked out. So that's where my mind went - giant lotto tickets 😂
I was up at that hour of the early morning, and was just looking out a window when that earthquake happened. A phenomenon that hasn't had much airplay, was a blue sort of flash in the blackness that I witness moving across the ground at a very quick pace. I believe this was a combination of the shorting out of the electrical transformers, and an inherent electrical discharge from the earth, triggered by the quake. It was spectacular, but happened in an instant. And just for historical accuracy, the quake killed a number of Los Angeles residents, and left a much larger number homeless. I recall seeing with my own eyes, apartment buildings where an entire side had fallen, allowing anyone to see inside, not unlike a child's dollhouse. It was a scary time, especially during the many aftershocks that occurred following the original quake. Am still glad I'm a survivor.
7:45: "Is this some kind of...Bat Signal or whatever? I don't know how America works." "Katie...you could not be further from the truth." Obviously. Batman lives on the East Coast, Los Angeles is on the West Coast.
Astronomers Aparna Venkatesan and John C. Barentine have recently coined the term "noctalgia" to describe the sadness of collectively losing our night skies.
I've seen it myself, several times, and it is majestic. Everyone should get to see it at least once in their lives, to expand their understanding of the cosmos. It's hard to do if you are east of the Mississippi.
When witnessing the ‘perfect night sky’ you come to understand how early people thought the universe revolved around us. When I saw ‘the perfect night sky’ many years ago, it felt claustrophobic - surrounded on all sides by what felt like thousands of tiny lights I thought I could just reach out and touch. I reckon most amateur astronomers have a story about the time they experienced ‘the perfect night sky’
There are fireflies in the western US but they don't actually glow. They are just related to their eastern cousins who do. If glowing fireflies swarmed in L.A., that would be a matter of great ecological concern.
that city has 2 names to my head: the letters L A, or the spanish pronunciation 🤷♀ I'm European so I haven't really talked about Los Angeles with other people, so idk how weird it sounds to others
Fun at its extreme. These chatterboxes are beyond comprehension. The end was stupendous. People seeing the Milky Way for the first time with their naked eyes. Amazing stuff!
I just learned today that 80% of North America's population can't see the Milky Way due to light pollution. Even though I have lived my whole life in rural areas, except for my college years, and haven't seen it, this could have taken place almost anywhere in North America, with any natural disaster capable of knocking out power.
I lived almost 60 miles south of the epicenter back in 1994... that 6.7 earthquake was terrifying. It was felt as far away as Richfield, Utah; Ensenda, Mexico; and Phoenix, Arizona. It hit at 4:30am, jarring us awake. We thought the house was going to collapse on us. The area shook so hard that half the water in the pool slashed out. There were explosions all around the area as power transformers blew up. We heard cars collide at the nearby intersection. After the main jolt, all the neighbours were outside their homes making sure everyone was ok and seeing how much damage might have been caused to our homes and the area. There was also concern that it was a precursor tremmor to an even larger one, like what happened in the Ridgecrest earthquake in 2019.
Let me add, that most of us native Californians don't often worry about earthquakes below 5.0. We have earthquakes every day out here, but most go unnoticed because they're so small.
A murmuration of starlings is a cloud of birds - a glorious, swirling, swooping, pulsating cloud of birds. I'm very lucky* to have an area where starlings roost very near my house, and it's an unbelievable sight. Occasionally the flocks from different roosts will coalesce in the City Centre, above the River Clyde and put on a magical display. *I say "lucky", but starlings certainly aren't popular with everyone - they bully smaller garden birds and you don't want to be living directly underneath a roost - their waste can cause damage to paintwork etc. Thankfully they aren't around all year.
I think it goes like this: At any given moment, about 40% of the population is fully prepared to look up and see something unusual because they spend 99% of their time indoors on games. The earthquake was just a jolt that forced thousands of people outside at the same time. 40% looked up and said what they would have said on any day, "What's that??" My own brother asked me "why the moon wasn't in the place where its supposed to be?" He had simply never noticed that it moved throught the month.
I was in Los Angeles when the earthquake happened--at about 4:30 am. I may have walked outside and seen the Milky Way, but by then I knew what it was and it wouldn't have been concerned. Even if I had been concerned, I would have never called 911 (by the way, isn't it 999 where you are?) The first time I noticed the Milky Way, I was camping under the stars in the mountains (above Los Angeles) and I awoke in the dark and saw the weird looking cloud. I did figure out what it was, though--I had seen many shows at the planetarium in the Griffith Observatory.
Based on the ambiguous wording of the question, I was completely convinced that this happened in the middle of the day. My initial thought was "why would anyone call 911 about a cloud?" Even scary cumulonimbus clouds don't generally elicit emergency phone calls. So my working theory was that the cloud either looked like a tornado or a column of smoke, because people would be terrified of a tornado and worried about a fire. I couldn't figure out how an earthquake would start a tornado (and dispatchers would definitely not dismiss a tornado), so I guessed that the earthquake started a small fire (perhaps a gas line rupture or something) that the authorities quickly got under control, but the column of black smoke worried people. How wrong I was.
@@comicus01 most of my summers were spent camping in remote enough areas to see all the stars, but I was also in NorCal, maybe we're just more nature focused than SoCal
One of the few times I’ve already come across the story :) Can’t for the life of me remember where or when I heard it, but I immediately recognised the scenario when he was asking the question.
Trust me. I live in southern California. The strange cloud was exhaust and dust kicked up when the "Aliens👽" jammed after they were forced to update their Extended Warranty of their " Space Craft". The earthquake was just a cover story. We tried to tell them don't answer robocalls.
I think I know this one. The power went out and so the residents were seeing stars without light pollution for the first time. If it’s not that then I’ve confused the two stories lol
Me immediately after the question was asked: "The earthquake knocked out the power and they were seeing the milky way- wait how would they call 911 if it was a blackout? It must be something else" Tom at the end: "No, it was that." Me: "Well that's me told I guess."
I'll be 50 in a couple months and I can't believe I've never been anywhere truly devoid of light pollution. Well, maybe I have a couple times when camping in national forests in Arkansas and Alabama, but the thing east of the Mississippi is there's usually some amount of cloud cover at some strata of the atmosphere. Southern California is not only blessed in that regard; their neighbor to the west isn't another city, it's the Pacific Ocean.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
I was on a hill next to LAX that night; and while the earthquake was terrifying, seeing a city-sized international port of entry go entirely black and silent was absolutely scary. It was unearthly to see something as constantly bright and loud as Las Vegas just go dead. That being said, this episode is the funniest one I have seen so far, and has given me a chance to look back and laugh at that otherwise frightening night. Good grief, why am I craving sugar and Glow-sticks now?
Makes sense. I was in New York during the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003; it felt apocalyptic. I was also in Austin, TX during Winter Storm Uri, which also felt apocalyptic for different reasons...
What is the point of this video? It’s just minutes and minutes of these people throwing out dumb answers probably to extend the video past the 10 minute sweet spot for RUclips. Was I the only one irritated the main dude wouldn’t get to the point??
@@sanguine2552 It's called Lateral, not Direct.
@@sanguine2552The entire point of this show (that he doesn't really explain because this is a clip of the show) is to get some guests on and ask them a question that they have to figure out the answer to. And it usually involves "lateral thinking", which is why the show is named Lateral.
@@sanguine2552😂
Tom - A 6.7 earthquake is very strong! I was living close to the epicenter at the time. It felt and sounded like a freight train going through my ground floor apartment. The Northridge earthquake initially caused power outage to 2.3 million people, a few freeway overpasses fell down, a parking structure collapsed, 57 people died, and there was damage over a large area. And yes, the dark sky was one of the things I was in awe over! It was beautiful.
I think that's what he meant. Like it was bad, but not too devastating. Cause a 6.7 is gonna be felt a hell of a lot harder in LA than in the middle of the desert.
@@maxbracegirdle9990 Although a 6.7 would probably completely destroy a city like London that doesn't have the same earthquake safety building codes, since they don't really get any earthquakes.
@@wta1518 That's why places close to fault lines have those building codes.
As soon as he said it, I knew. I remember this making the news when it happened. Its kind of sad for many different reasons.
I have heard of this, but it was the moon, and they thought UFO.
Two astronomers have recently created the word "noctalgia" to describe the sadness of collectively losing the night sky.
@@LiveFreeOrDieDHAnd the universal adoption of LED bulbs has made it so much worse.
@@ifiveohLED’s create more Light pollution some how?
As far as I understand it, it comes down to lamp type/which way the light is directed. LEDs pointed directly down, are superior to all other options as far as reducing light pollution goes. It was heavily studied in the County of Moorpark, the findings were publicly released and available.
It was an interesting read as I recall!
"Ma'am, it's no cause for concern, it's just the radiation from hundreds of billions of continuous thermonuclear explosions, it's natural and normal."
They're not explosions; they're too heavy to explode properly.
You just know a 9-1-1 operator answered one of these calls with "So, stars are not just people who appear in movies..."
I'd have been more terrified of that hypothetical cloid of sugar. Especially if it was powdered.
Imagine the cleanup... a true nightmare XD
@@S7E_Siriel-PrivatPowders are extremely combustible. Huge explosion risk.
Yes! My first thought was like sea birds after an oil leak, but everything and everyone, everywhere...
There have been sugar plants that exploded after something knocked a bunch of sugar dust into the air. The sugar cloud scenario is as chilling as the prospect of a dense enough cloud outside of the plant is unlikely.
Almost like that historical molasses flood.
I made a joke about it being the milky way at the start and was suprised i was right. I only knew the story second hand as a story about people living their entire life in high density urban areas. So i just knew it as a generic power outage not that the outage was caused by an earthquake.
I thought that legend was about north-east power outage
@@NoNameAtAll2me too, I thought this was the outage for the tri-state area.
I would assume this has happened in multiple locations, there's more than one large metropolis
I was standing a motel parking lot during that earthquake. It was like surfing the concrete slab with the sound of car alarms and flashes from exploding transformers.
Aaaaaaaaaand before anyone says anything about this detail (spoilers below)
This is before cell phones were quite as ubiquitous, so everyone had a landline phone. Land line phone systems or "POTS" lines had their own power system separate from the traditional grid for emergencies.
So power is out, phones work, and people get confused about stars.
and theres still a lot of landlines in houses- most people still have them. You can charge your cell from them with the right illegal gadgets, even if you don't pay for service
@@confuseatronica you can use it to power all manner of gadgets if you want to and have the proper equipment ;)
I always thought that this was an urban legend, a sort of hippie morality tale about how disconnected we have become to our true roots as a species, going from creating mythology based on the specific arrangement of the celestial bodies in a clear night sky, to becoming so inundated with nocturnal light that a sizeable proportion of city-dwellers have never seen the Milky Way. But I looked it up, and there are actual, reliable sources for the story. Says a lot about the state of humanity, I think.
and it was decades ago, imagine now, no wonder we got flate-earther and stuff
But doesn't it have to be really really dark to actually see the whole milky way clearly? I've been in the Finnish archipelago on clear nights, and only in the most remote place I know have I seen the slightest bit of milky way.
@@alvinrasmus6674 it doesn't have to be really dark, just as few cloud as possible, no smog (easier if you are on the west of deserts) and no light pollution (easier if the entire grid is down), also it's around 2 am so pollutions are dissipated most of the time
@@fltfathin maybe water vapor was the thing here, cos damn it was in the middle of nowhere
Wow, that's so strange, for us in the southern hemisphere you just look up and it is there
I live near LA and remember that earthquake (vaguely). I was in high school that year. No power loss where I lived, so the Milky Way stayed hidden for me. But he's right, normally we can't see it at all. Maybe 50 total stars on a clear night. And many nights we get a marine layer which prevents seeing anything.
Regarding how strong it feels: it's not just the magnitude, it's how close you are to the epicenter. I think I was at least 30 miles away, so not as bad for me as someone who lived above it. But a 6.7 is pretty strong. Anything over 5 will be a good jolt if you are close enough. "Bad but not devastating" is a good summary.
Last note: 1994 was definitely a year for LA. We had: the earthquake, wildfires, floods, and riots that year. I think someone made a t-shirt with that as our 4 seasons on it.
I was in the San Fernando Valley when that quake hit. It was my first! I went outside ('cause you know, you just have to; I guess) and the sky actually weirded me out. I had a moment of trying to figure out how an earthquake could make the sky look just wrong. It took me about 10 seconds to realize that I should not be able to see stars like Deep in the Heart of Texas (where I'm from) stars. I could hear people yelling in pain because things large and small fell on them so I knew 911 was busy with things more important than soothing my rattled nerves.
As an amateur astronomer who moved to L.A. in '96, it's well-known local lore. I love that you did this one :)
i love bill taking a bad joke and going into detail about it for 20 seconds straight
It's a little rude when he does it to all of Rowan and Katie's bits so they can't actually develop any of their own ideas.
@@ccommack Well, to me, they all seem to be going along with the joke theme and not just trying to solve the question; it'd be quite mundane without
LA experienced Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" for real. Awesome.
i wouldn't be surprised if it happened more and more, especially after they started using these white led streetlights. It's getting BRIGHT at night now- if you go to a secluded canyon in the hills and let your eyes adjust, you can just about read from the city light of the west valley and the Conejo Valley
@@confuseatronicait got brighter below, but less bright above the light
so LED areas are less light-polluting surrounding territories
That is a great short story by Asimov.
@@NoNameAtAll2 that makes sense, like you could expect that, but its not whats actually happening. The skyglow has changed from sodium-orange to white and has gotten objectively brighter with the same telescope camera and exposure time/gain
All hail the mighty Glow Cloud!
I do wonder if this incident was the inspiration for the Glow Cloud from Nightvale...
I remember hearing about this years ago, and it still pops into my head sometimes.
Space is, to me, the most beautiful thing
The answer gives off “no mother, that’s just the Northern Lights” kinda vibes
Wouldn't a cloud of powdered sugar be highly flammable?
Reduce most things to a powder and they'll be highly flammable. RUclips seems to drop posts with links in them, but search for "QI custard explosion" or "Mythbusters coffee creamer"
Yes, that would have been dangerous!
explosive even.
Yep, the National Chemical Safety Board has made several videos about sugar factories exploding due to sugar dust igniting.
@@kentslocum Flour mills and lumber mills as well; even nowadays they're semi-regular occurrences.
LA residents: Good lord, what is happening in there?!
9-11 operator: Aurora Borealis.
Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country?
Yes!
May I see it?
No.
_Seymour!_ The house is on fire!
this story is how i learned about Light Pollution
I've heard the story before, but I only remembered about it after hearing the answer. And I feel like this could happen in a lot of big cities, I think similar calls happened in NY during their blackout?
Tom, I will never stop praising you for having real and great subtitles on all your videos.
Oh my god. This is freaking incredible. I feel so bad for people who have lived in dense urban centers their whole lives.
I have seen clouds of candy floss (or cotton candy as we call it). In college, they had a cotton candy maker on the quad one windy day with no wind shield on it. I bought one cotton candy, and then got a full size refill just by scooping the cotton candy that was blowing in the air.
Yay, this was my questions. I love the show and glad they had fun with this one.
This is a tragic reminder that there are people who have never seen the night sky for its true beauty. We need more dark zones or a few hours a month where all lights in a town/city are off.
I love hearing all the California stereotypes 😂😅
They forgot about the smog, which I thought could have something to do with the answer.
@@korganrocks3995 yeah, this was my bet and also went unmarked in my LA stereotype bingo card along with violence, traffic jams and the Red Hot Chilly Peppers
1:26 - 6.7 can be devastating if it's shallow enough.
"candy floss everywhere" 😂
I thought he was going to say the moon, I would have died laughing.
The second of the Christchurch earthquakes was magnitude 6.3 and centred almost right under the city. It felt *very* strong. There was a big, heavy CRT monitor on my desk, and it was bouncing around like crazy. I had to put my hand out to stop it from jumping off.
I don't remember this but I would have been a kid at the time. I do remember TV ads for when the Mega Millions lottery was introduced into California and they featured a huge lottery ticket flying through the sky as people freaked out. So that's where my mind went - giant lotto tickets 😂
They are so entangled in the American Way that they can't think of any other Way.
I was up at that hour of the early morning, and was just looking out a window when that earthquake happened. A phenomenon that hasn't had much airplay, was a blue sort of flash in the blackness that I witness moving across the ground at a very quick pace. I believe this was a combination of the shorting out of the electrical transformers, and an inherent electrical discharge from the earth, triggered by the quake. It was spectacular, but happened in an instant. And just for historical accuracy, the quake killed a number of Los Angeles residents, and left a much larger number homeless. I recall seeing with my own eyes, apartment buildings where an entire side had fallen, allowing anyone to see inside, not unlike a child's dollhouse. It was a scary time, especially during the many aftershocks that occurred following the original quake. Am still glad I'm a survivor.
Not the only time a distress like that happened (iirc I think there was a similar thing due to a blackout in NY).
7:45: "Is this some kind of...Bat Signal or whatever? I don't know how America works."
"Katie...you could not be further from the truth."
Obviously. Batman lives on the East Coast, Los Angeles is on the West Coast.
8:17 ngl thats kinda sad
Astronomers Aparna Venkatesan and John C. Barentine have recently coined the term "noctalgia" to describe the sadness of collectively losing our night skies.
I've seen it myself, several times, and it is majestic. Everyone should get to see it at least once in their lives, to expand their understanding of the cosmos. It's hard to do if you are east of the Mississippi.
Just keep going further east, until the lights sink below the horizon again.
When witnessing the ‘perfect night sky’ you come to understand how early people thought the universe revolved around us. When I saw ‘the perfect night sky’ many years ago, it felt claustrophobic - surrounded on all sides by what felt like thousands of tiny lights I thought I could just reach out and touch. I reckon most amateur astronomers have a story about the time they experienced ‘the perfect night sky’
I thought the disturbed residents were going to be a mega swarm of insects - and maybe fireflies happen to be prevalent in LA
Firefliies are an east coast thing. Some people coming out to California have been disappointed that there are no fireflies.
There are fireflies in the western US but they don't actually glow. They are just related to their eastern cousins who do.
If glowing fireflies swarmed in L.A., that would be a matter of great ecological concern.
*insert Abe Simpson "old man yells at cloud" meme here
As a former Angeleno, thank you for not pronouncing it "Los Angeleeze."
that city has 2 names to my head: the letters L A, or the spanish pronunciation 🤷♀ I'm European so I haven't really talked about Los Angeles with other people, so idk how weird it sounds to others
Fun at its extreme. These chatterboxes are beyond comprehension. The end was stupendous. People seeing the Milky Way for the first time with their naked eyes. Amazing stuff!
I just learned today that 80% of North America's population can't see the Milky Way due to light pollution. Even though I have lived my whole life in rural areas, except for my college years, and haven't seen it, this could have taken place almost anywhere in North America, with any natural disaster capable of knocking out power.
I lived almost 60 miles south of the epicenter back in 1994... that 6.7 earthquake was terrifying. It was felt as far away as Richfield, Utah; Ensenda, Mexico; and Phoenix, Arizona. It hit at 4:30am, jarring us awake. We thought the house was going to collapse on us. The area shook so hard that half the water in the pool slashed out. There were explosions all around the area as power transformers blew up. We heard cars collide at the nearby intersection. After the main jolt, all the neighbours were outside their homes making sure everyone was ok and seeing how much damage might have been caused to our homes and the area. There was also concern that it was a precursor tremmor to an even larger one, like what happened in the Ridgecrest earthquake in 2019.
Let me add, that most of us native Californians don't often worry about earthquakes below 5.0. We have earthquakes every day out here, but most go unnoticed because they're so small.
A cloud of birds? I like the idea.
A murmuration of starlings is a cloud of birds - a glorious, swirling, swooping, pulsating cloud of birds.
I'm very lucky* to have an area where starlings roost very near my house, and it's an unbelievable sight.
Occasionally the flocks from different roosts will coalesce in the City Centre, above the River Clyde and put on a magical display.
*I say "lucky", but starlings certainly aren't popular with everyone - they bully smaller garden birds and you don't want to be living directly underneath a roost - their waste can cause damage to paintwork etc.
Thankfully they aren't around all year.
5:25
I think it was a cloud of smug, as predicted by South Park.
As I rewatch this, the only clouds over LA are from several wildfires, as trees, homes and schools burn to the ground.
1:02 Try as you might, tom has had some training with podcast derailers. you won't destabilize him that easily.
Worlds colliding! I remember Katie Steckles from Only Connect!
tom was also on only connect lol
I like how the joke about the actors being the cloud was surprisingly close.
That was really good. I was convinced the answer was that fireflies had been disturbed and had all flew into the air together!
It was GLOWING??
ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD -
I was really hoping it'd be fireflies
5:36 I'd be pretty disturbed if I saw a cloud of underpaid actors in the sky
I lived in LA for 6 months and the only time there was a cloud in the sky was when there was a wildlife.
I think it goes like this: At any given moment, about 40% of the population is fully prepared to look up and see something unusual because they spend 99% of their time indoors on games. The earthquake was just a jolt that forced thousands of people outside at the same time. 40% looked up and said what they would have said on any day, "What's that??" My own brother asked me "why the moon wasn't in the place where its supposed to be?" He had simply never noticed that it moved throught the month.
I was in Los Angeles when the earthquake happened--at about 4:30 am. I may have walked outside and seen the Milky Way, but by then I knew what it was and it wouldn't have been concerned. Even if I had been concerned, I would have never called 911 (by the way, isn't it 999 where you are?)
The first time I noticed the Milky Way, I was camping under the stars in the mountains (above Los Angeles) and I awoke in the dark and saw the weird looking cloud. I did figure out what it was, though--I had seen many shows at the planetarium in the Griffith Observatory.
I don't what is a worse indictment of LA residents, that they thought the Milky Way was a cloud, or that they actually called 911 about it.
Strong Gary Brannan energy from Bill's suggestions, I love when he's in this podcast!
I imagine a powdered sugar cloud would be very explosive.
Please tell Katie that Americans don't understand America, she certainly can't be expected to.
Based on the ambiguous wording of the question, I was completely convinced that this happened in the middle of the day. My initial thought was "why would anyone call 911 about a cloud?" Even scary cumulonimbus clouds don't generally elicit emergency phone calls. So my working theory was that the cloud either looked like a tornado or a column of smoke, because people would be terrified of a tornado and worried about a fire. I couldn't figure out how an earthquake would start a tornado (and dispatchers would definitely not dismiss a tornado), so I guessed that the earthquake started a small fire (perhaps a gas line rupture or something) that the authorities quickly got under control, but the column of black smoke worried people.
How wrong I was.
Fire tornadoes are a thing in big fires. But yes, that would be a real threat.
There are certain remote areas in Thailand that are dark enough to see hundred of starts, it is magnificent.
There are plenty of remote areas in California where you can see all the stars
@@ACAB.forcutie I've been in the Mojave at night. You can see everything.
@@comicus01 most of my summers were spent camping in remote enough areas to see all the stars, but I was also in NorCal, maybe we're just more nature focused than SoCal
I dream of going someplace really remote one day where you see stars like in those photos, where they just blanket the sky.
@@ACAB.forcutie I never had the opportunity to go to California, but I live in Thailand :)
I mean, if aliens were going to land, they'd do it in California, right?
That's what all the movies tell me 🤷♀️
This question started off so rocky and Tom was questioning his entire life choices
The Northridge quake was no joke, we felt it 172 miles North of LA!
It's clear that the cloud was Jean Jacket as portrayed in the 2022 Jordan Peele horror film NOPE.
My mind went to such dark places, I thought it would be a cloud of ash from a mortuary or something
I enjoy Bill’s uninhibited “just say stuff” approach
A cloud, very very far away...
0:31 - Was this something about the earthquake knocking out power/lights and making the sky properly visible and it was just the moon or something?
Really good guess!
One of the few times I’ve already come across the story :) Can’t for the life of me remember where or when I heard it, but I immediately recognised the scenario when he was asking the question.
Might be the first one of these that I totally knew the answer to.
I've heard tales of people seeing Ferengi and Cardassians driving around shortly after the quake.
As a californian, i have just learned ALOT about the way the world views Los Angeles
5:20 bills imagination never gets old
"It couldn't be further from the truth."
It can't be the Milky Way. We're in that.
"It's the Milky Way."
Doh!
I was 11 when that earthquake hit. I remember it so clearly. It took over the news for days.
I knew this one prior, first time i knew the answer instantly
“You say not to worry, it’s just the … what exactly is a then? Surely you don’t mean the candy bar?”
The same thing happened in New York City after a power cut. Several times in fact.
Trust me. I live in southern California. The strange cloud was exhaust and dust kicked up when the "Aliens👽" jammed after they were forced to update their Extended Warranty of their " Space Craft". The earthquake was just a cover story. We tried to tell them don't answer robocalls.
Old VSauce viewers knew this immediately from the title.
ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD! ALL HAIL
I think I know this one. The power went out and so the residents were seeing stars without light pollution for the first time. If it’s not that then I’ve confused the two stories lol
Me immediately after the question was asked: "The earthquake knocked out the power and they were seeing the milky way- wait how would they call 911 if it was a blackout? It must be something else"
Tom at the end: "No, it was that."
Me: "Well that's me told I guess."
The glow cloud! (all hail)
I heard about this one a while ago so I would have had to sit this one out :o
I always thought it was new york however :O
Towards the end I was starting to worry if some residents had just never seen the Moon before and was reporting that
I don't think light pollution is quite that bad!
Quiet poetic that this one took place in the city of stars
I'll be 50 in a couple months and I can't believe I've never been anywhere truly devoid of light pollution. Well, maybe I have a couple times when camping in national forests in Arkansas and Alabama, but the thing east of the Mississippi is there's usually some amount of cloud cover at some strata of the atmosphere. Southern California is not only blessed in that regard; their neighbor to the west isn't another city, it's the Pacific Ocean.
Damn it! I didn't get this until the very end, but I knew this from ages ago! 😖😅
The only reason I got the answer immediately is because this exact scanario was shown in 9-1-1, a show that takes place in LA, after a 7.2 earthquake
Makes sense. The only stars we usually see here in Los Angeles are from Hollywood.
Funny thing: I lived through this earthquake and don't remember this story.
I actually knew this one right away
Its both sad and frustrating to understand how much light pollution, from cities, blots out the majesty of the milky way. A travesty.
I'd heard but forgotten this story. I did get that they were woken up and saw something normal that the didn't recognise.