Posted on Wednesday, 23rd September 2009 by Interloper
This morning Sydney residents awoke to a blood-red sky as the worst dust storm in at least 70 years blanketed the city. This seemed like fun when I first checked out the pictures, but it wasn’t all exciting, as explained by Wheezle in the Shrine forums: “Believe me, you get over it once you’ve inhaled enough dust.”
Another Shriner, duran, revealed that the dust was also responsible for setting off smoke alarms and delaying emergency services. Flights were cancelled from Sydney Airport, the M5 tunnel was closed and Sydney’s ferries were all suspended, while authorities urged people to close their windows and for people with respiratory problems to stay indoors.
Some people have already made claims that the sky is somehow a portend of doom. But is a red sky actually a sign of the apocalypse? I decided to take a look at the literature in an attempt to uncover the “truth” about the end times.
References to red sky in the Bible aren’t actually as prevalent as you might believe. The Biblical scholars among you might like to note that I’m taking these quotations from the New International Version.
In Matthew 16:3, there appears the statement: “…and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”
This is an interesting and multi-layered quote that draws a vivid distinction between signs “of the sky” and signs “of the times”. To me, this seems to provide a strong indication that a red sky alone is not sufficient cause to fear the apocalypse.
Crimson skies don’t really appear in the Bible again, though the moon does turn red (or, at least, the colour of blood) in Revelations: 6:12.
In the noble Qur’an, the sky doesn’t appear to change colour much at all. The 46th sura, called “Al-Ahqaf” or “The Sandhills” warns us of approaching clouds: “So when they saw it — a cloud advancing towards their valleys, they said: This is a cloud bringing us rain. Nay, it is that which you sought to hasten, a wind wherein is painful chastisement.”
It turns out that we need to look further afield if we truly want to find ominous “red light” within spiritual literature.
One of these can be found in the alleged Hopi Prophecy of the “Red Katchina”, as told by Dr. Robert “Ghost” Wolf in his book Last Cry: Native American Prophecies & Tales of the End Times
According to the story, something called the “Red Katchina” or “Purifier” will appear and issue forth a “great Red Light”. The arrival of this figure will allegedly cause all things to “change in their manner of being” . Although this story appears in various forms all over the internet, “credible” accounts are hard to come by, casting serious doubts as to whether or not we might actually gain any real insight from it.
Perhaps our response to the sky turning red is better explained by the fact that, long after human civilisation has vanished from the planet, our own Sol is likely to become a red giant; expanding in mass until it extends beyond the current orbit of Earth.
There’s also the matter of that old saying that claims a red sky at morning is some type of warning for either shepherds or sailors. This idea was even touched upon by Shakespeare in his 1587 work, Venus & Adonis: “Like a red morn, that ever betoken’d wreck to the seaman — sorrow to the shepherds.”
Both of these professions (sailors and shepherds) require at least some working knowledge of changing weather conditions, seeming to indicate that the saying is more of an exercise in primitive meteorology than any real sign of Revelation.
So is a red sky actually any sort of sign of impending destruction? It is undoubtedly an emotive sight, and the type of event that doesn’t happen all that often. It is impossible to tell, however, if our innate distrust of such an event actually speaks of some deep, intrinsic understanding about reality; or if it is as natural as the musings of a confused dog that believes it’s standing outside, when really it’s beneath a red tent.
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