Mystery in Bridgewater: What caused strange glowing lights in the sky?
It may have looked like an out-of-this-world blast, but authorities say a mysterious glow that lit up the early-morning sky in Bridgewater today was no cause for alarm.
Some county and Bridgewater officials believe that transformer fires caused by heavy rain may have played a part in the freakish light show, although they had no definitive answers about the source of the lights.
Shortly after midnight, several Bridgewater residents reported seeing a pulsating glow in the distance that changed colors, similar to the aurora borealis. They said the lights appeared to come from the northern part of the township.
"The sky lit up like pure daylight," said 87-year-old Joseph Wing, who lives on Foothill Road. "This was unlike anything I’ve ever seen."
Wing said he first wondered if an explosion was responsible, but he didn’t hear a blast or feel an impact that matched the intensity of the lights.
He said the glow disappeared around 12:30 a.m. It was followed by reports of power outages in the township.
USER VIDEOS: NJ.com user Alyssa Dragon of Bridgewater shares this video taken from her home. She said she saw the lights around 12:45 a.m.
"On Facebook there were a lot a people saying, 'Oh maybe it was aliens, but I obviously knew that wasn't the most realistic option," Dragon said.
Bridgewater resident Mike Vida took this video in the Sunset Lake area of the town, near Interstate 78. Riffing off what many residents said the lights looked like — an alien attack — he titled his video "War of the World Lights."
"It was very, very strange," Vida said. "It didn't seem like an electrical problem."
A Bridgewater police official and a Jersey Central Power & Light spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment. But Township Council President Howard Norgalis said he was aware of several electricity-related fires around that time — most notably a sparking transformer near Milltown Road and Route 28.
Robert Bogart, township administrator, said there was also a transformer explosion on Route 202/206 and Heather Hill Way.
William Stahl, the county's 9-1-1 director, said he saw lights dimming and brightening on the horizon from his Warren Township home this morning. Based on Tuesday night's weather, the lights might have been caused by tree limbs falling on power lines, causing sparks and blown fuses, he said.
Early this morning, after the bright flashes of light began appearing in the Bridgewater sky, concerned residents and startled motorists called a live radio talk show on New Jersey 101.5-FM to report what they had seen.
Some callers reported what appeared to be a transformer explosion, with the sky lighting up in bright blue and green flashes that lasted more than a minute.
"I'm lying in bed when I hear this enormous rumbling sound," said one man who called the Ray Rossi show. When he looked outside his window, he saw blue and green lights in the sky, "like a flash of lightning that never stops."
A woman who called the radio station said she saw extremely bright blue flashes of light flickering in the sky and lighting up her neighborhood for about two minutes.
Reports of strange lights in the sky are nothing unusual for New Jersey. Among the most recent were mysterious lights in Morris County in 2009, though those were red lights that were later revealed to be helium balloons tied with car flares.
. We were in the dark for a couple of hours, but thankfully the electric company fixed it rather quickly, i was surprised.
