xt7jh98zct60_37 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7jh98zct60/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7jh98zct60/data/2015ms086.dao.xml Bevins, Martha 0.05 Cubic Feet 55 items archival material 2015ms086 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Martha Bevins letters to Tom McCarthy Radio broadcasting. Agriculture -- Kentucky. Birds Women air pilots. 1957 December 3 text 1957 December 3 2016 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7jh98zct60/data/2015ms086/Box_ms_42/Folder_1/Item_37/1957_12_3_Bevins_Red_mist_in_sky_p1.pdf 1957 December 3 1957 1957 December 3 section false xt7jh98zct60_37 xt7jh98zct60 r was
. Morning View Kentucky
3 December 1957
Hello Mr. McCarthy,
The latest outburst of celestial phenomena, viewed all over the
world since the advent of Sputnik #1, has left me feeling terrifically
frustrated. I have spent thousands of hours chugging back andf
forth across the sky. I am outdoors more than most people, and
watching the heavens is an automatic gesture; yet I have seen
only airplanes, birds, weather balloons, comets, eclipses, and
other ordinary things.
The disappointment was the more crushing this time, as I thought
I saw something too, and was happy as a sunflower about it for
several days. I saw that nice, mysterious, luminous red mist of
the evening of November 6th.
It was such an unusually Lovely evening for November, that I was
out wandering about enjoying it. Little clouds were silver grey
in the moonlight, and off to the North, pale fingers of search-

, lights patterned the night sky, oceasionally touching a cloud to
fileeting whiteness. '
As I stood looking absently into a stretch of open sky, it Was
suddenly pierced by a dot of pinkish light. It Was a tiny flash,
but almost painfully brilliant, and I have a persistent feeling
that it Was a double flicker of light —- two almost instantaneous
flashes -— though I do not consciously remember it as such.
while I wondered whether it might be the faulty wing tip light
of a distant airliner, and Watched for its repetition, I became
aware that the bit of sky at which I was starmgg Was assuming a
glowing rosy hue. Distrusting my eyes, I looked aWay, then back
again. The luminous redness Was definitly brighter and had spread
over a larger area.

It moved slowly but perceptibly westward, continuing to intensify
in color and brightness, though not so rapidly as at first. Pale
clouds, like a school or silvery fish, drifted across the glow

and it appeared to shine more vividly through the interstices.

I watched in the utmost contentment until there Was again nothing
to see but moon and stars high above the wandering searchlights.
By the time it had vanished, I was comfortably certain of the
identity of the gleaming red haze. The whole world was Waiting for

 r
-2-
Russia to do something to the moon November 7th, and there had been
much talk about their marking it with a great red blob of color
carried there by a rocket.
Obviously, the red mist Was either heavy luminous red dust or
liquid destined for the moon, but released in space by premature
explosion of the rocket. Its apparent moving from East to West was
an illusion caused by the earth's turning under it. It seemed to
move more rapidly than the moon because it Was not so far aWay.
It was a nice theory and I kept it handy to think about for several
days, delighted that something had gone wrong with the rocket, and
that I had witnessed the event.
Whereupon the experts shattered my little theory by explaining the
red luminosity as mere eccentricity on the part of the Northern
Lights, though they readily admitted that neither in behavior nor
appearance did the mist resemble the Aurora.
I am still not convinced.
‘ Sincerely,
fiL’Y“: w 1 ~' L
Incidentally, I listen from 06:15 to 09:00. Nothing else of
interest is on. The Berlin music is fun. Please, Mr. McCarthy,
would you some morning include Cantique de Noel (spelling doubtful)
in the Christmas Carols. It is my favorite and I almost never
hear it, perhaps because it is more difficult to sing.
The following thought for the day occurred to me when I was out
stumbling about in the snow and wind of last Saturday :- as a
person grows older, the summers become shorter and winters longer.