I'm an amateur astronomer, very amateur.

Don't get me wrong. I love stargazing, but I'm also your average millennial, deep in student debt, renting in a high cost of living area

and working a dead-end soul-crushing job. So I don't really have the time,

or the savings to sink into this hobby.

Near Thanksgiving last year, my grand got me the best telescope she could afford for my birthday.

The fact that she'd invest in a hobby of mine like that

means so much to me. And I've been taking it out to Stargase as much as I can ever since. For the most part it's been fun and exhilarating and I've

been learning a lot about the universe and our place in it. It's just so cool to drive out to the middle of nowhere and look up.

Well I guess I should say it was.

Something happened in January that's making me question reality

that I just can't stop thinking about.

In short, I saw something strange, something I can't explain. I'll get to that.

First, for context, one of the things I really wanted to observe this year was the first full moon.

It sounded like the title of a poorly translated anime, Superblood Wolf Moon. It's pretty rare, so I wanted to do it

justice by getting far from the glow of Denver and its several suburbs.

I drove east, away from the Rockies, then south towards desert and desolation.

Somewhere between Raton and Tows I pulled over.

It was nearing night by this point.

The sun was just this slim, rust-red glow on the horizon that bled up to these vapor wave pinks and outrun purples.

And it was quiet.

So quiet!

No buzz of city sounds, no planes droning above, in a holding pattern above DIA. Only the constant

...