Iridescent Clouds Over Mexico

Last Wednesday morning, during my daily commute, I observed something quite remarkable. At least I think it was remarkable... though I may be the only person who thinks that way.

I was driving southward on a boulevard street called Periférico; instead of taking my usual shortcut to avoid traffic, I kept on this main street because I had to stop on my way to work in order to pick up some paperwork concerning my medical insurance at a nearby office.

The day was very windy and clear, and the clouds were long and with very defined edges, not quite lenticular, though. It was around 8:30 in the morning, and the traffic was very slow. On my left, in the southeast direction, and at approximately 2 o'clock altitude, I noticed that the clouds closer to the sun displayed the colors of the rainbow; I was shocked and at first thought this was some sort of illusion due to my car's windshield. I decided then to lower my left window to see this phenomenon as directly as I could.

This page, which displays some pictures taken in Iceland, shows exactly the kind of clouds I saw that day.

I admit that my first reaction was one of fear. My first thought was something like "Oh, sh*t! does this mean there's going to be an earthquake or something?" given that there had been a lot of discussion about weird clouds seen before the massive 8.8 earthquake that struck in Chile a few weeks ago —living in such a seismically-active area like Mexico, you'll hopefully forgive the paranoia.

Later I calmed down and started to enjoy the beautiful portent; I felt humbled and in awe and began to wonder if that's what the people gathered at Cova da Iria in 1917 felt like when they witnessed the events reported during the famous Fatima apparitions —the reason I thought of this it's because I've been reading 'Heavenly Lights'. The Fatima events fascinate me.

Admittedly my behavior was not entirely safe, given that I was paying more attention to the sky than the road ahead of me! still, as I explained, the traffic was so slow I was barely making 25 km/h (something quite common at Mexicans rush hours); during the whole time I kept wondering if the other drivers were also aware of these clouds, or were just minding their own business, either fighting the morning drowsiness like automatons, or performing their usual morning rituals like the haphazard appliance of make-up with the aide of the rearview mirror —for many Mexican women, their cars is another extension of their bathrooms.

As I kept driving forward, eventually these amazing clouds were left behind and I was forced to re-focus on my driving, as I was coming near my first destination. I cursed the fact that I didn't own a cell phone with a camera that I could take a picture to share, but by that time I was confident that other people would report this incident and that it would even appear on the news —In the meantime, I decided use this fortuitous incident as my introduction for my Thursday News Briefs of the week.

Sadly, I was mistaken: I have been waiting for some international or local news media to mention the iridescent clouds that I watched, but there has been no mention of them whatsoever. None!

It's not that I'm conceding this unusual aerial phenomenon to have some mystical significance, as I'm pretty sure it can be explained due to the refraction of the sun light through the thin veil of the clouds. What REALLY pisses me off is that, in a city of 20 million people, I was the only person who bothered to look up to the sky and marvel at his gift of Nature.

So now I'm thinking that, even if those guys predicting all kinds of weird things happening in 2012 are right, there's a chance that most people will be so utterly submerged with their petty little daily chores that they won't notice a god damn thing.

Jesus Christ could come through a tunnel of light riding a winged unicorn, but that won't stop the morning commuters from humming their favorite radio tunes or yelling to the driver next to them for cutting them off!

It's a depressing an lonely feeling, because we humans often need consensual validation in order to rate our reality. As far as anyone else is concerned, the iridescent clouds over Mexico are a figment of my imagination; and yet I know I saw them. I know I shouldn't care whether people confirm my personal experiences or not, but sometimes we do need the 'other' to be part of our life journey. What's the point of learning new things if you don't have someone else to share with?