Solstice Lights
Colorado Rockies. Late 1970s. Winter Solstice - dusky twilight. Home - tucked into a narrow alpine valley 4,000 feet beneath the towering peak of a 12,000 foot mountain.
I was twelve years old and generally milling around our living room with my best friend - both of us preoccupied by my father's recurring mania of orchestrating the perfect Christmas holiday manifest in garish decor well beyond the massive spruce shimmering in a layer of silver tinsle, erected less than a week prior.
My friend and I dug through dilapidated old cardboard boxes for this or that... Dad directing from his recliner while scraping out or reloading his pipe.
Amid the radiant glow of thousands of twinkle lights encircling the tree and bordering a bank of huge, bare windows overlooking the darkening, snowy wilderness slightly distant, it was a wonder my mother saw the lights at all.
But she did.
Mom could often be found stationed in front of a window, binoculars in hand, staring through glass at the world beyond.
Other than our turntable, she had pretty much zeroed in on the only other form of ready entertainment.
"You're not going to believe this." She said quietly.
"What?" My father asked, curiosity piqued, ever-alert.
"Four lights just came in from all directions and surrounded the mountain. They're still there. One on each side, right next to the peak."
"What are they doing?" He asked, reluctant to relocate.
"They're just hovering there. Flashing... They look like huge Christmas lights..."
My friend and I were instantly by her side amid a flurry of ancient newspaper wrappings, their dusty bits still asunder and airborne.
"Wow..." We marveled. A bejeweled mountain at Christmastime...
The lights were indeed substantial, relative to the mountain. Discounting the broader aura of light, the three which were visible were perhaps 75 to100 feet tall, and likely round or disk-like. They were positioned at seemingly equal distances around the mountain's peak and - whether or not rotating - flashed distinct and vibrant, rapidly alternating colors of red, amber... green.
The mountain, itself, was an ancient, craggy volcanic upthrust of compressed limestone - and site of a huge, decades-old abandoned quarry chiseled from its girth.
Upon my mother's announcement of their timely annual return, the small fleet of apparent craft appeared each subsequent year of our three-year residency - arriving around each winters' Solstice, and steadily hovering in place for two weeks - before just as suddenly departing.
(C) Lisa Bracken 2025
First published on LinkedIn 2025