During a camping trip on the eve of the country’s 250th birthday, a group of Laramigos looked up to the night sky and saw it glow with shafts of light. 

The aurora borealis is caused by massive explosions on the sun that eject clouds of charged particles, which then collide with gases in Earth’s atmosphere. 

Seen from a quiet camp spot near Tie City, the undulating lights appeared silent and mysterious — a light show that has awed humans for millennia.

Maya Shimizu Harris covers public safety for WyoFile. She was previously a freelance writer and the state politics reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune.

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  1. Alas, auroras at this latitude are usually only visible to film cameras or to the very sensitive sensors of cell phones and digital cameras. In northern Wyoming you can sometimes see them with the naked eye.

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