© AP Photo/realclearwx.com, Brian EmfingerA photo provided by storm chaser Brian Emfinger shows the aurora borealis lighting up the Ozark, Ark., sky on Monday. In the Alleghany Highlands in Virginia, residents who said they saw an aircraft, heard an explosion then saw a fireball may have seen the lights, the Alleghany County sheriff said.
The solar storm that stirred colorful northern lights Monday surprised skywatchers unusually far south, including some who may have mistaken it for a mountain fire in the Alleghany Highlands.
The lights are usually visible near the North Pole and South Pole when solar storms happen in the spring. But for the second time in a decade, the lights, called aurora borealis, stretched as far south as Arkansas.
"They are very rare events," said NASA scientist Bill Cooke, who posted aurora photos on the Marshall Space Flight Center's blog. "We don't see them this far south that often."
People in the upper Alleghany Highlands began calling 911 about 9:30 p.m. Monday, reporting that they saw what appeared to be a small aircraft, heard an explosion, and saw a fireball on a mountain near Ogle Creek Road, said Dunlap Fire & Rescue Chief Travis Mullins.
Firefighters from four fire stations, sheriff's deputies from Alleghany County and Greenbrier County, W.Va., and state troopers searched the area until about 1:30a.m., then resumed the hunt Tuesday morning.
