お題「不思議な話」

これまで何度か不思議な体験をしましたので書いてみたいと思います。

①真夜中なのに周りが昼の様に明かるくなった

小学校の５年か６年の頃の話です。当時星を見るのが好きで夜中に起きては天体観測をしていました。しかし都会（大阪）では、周りが明るいので星を見る環境では無かったので、田舎の母の実家（丹波篠山）で天体観測をするのを楽しみにしていました。夏休みに新しい望遠鏡を買ってもらい、お盆の母の実家に帰省したときに、夜更かしをして天体観測を楽しんでいました。その年の夏休みは天候が良くて、都会では見ることが出来ない天の川とか北極星、北斗七星など色々な星々を見ることが出来て満足してました。帰省して３日目の夜の事だったと思います。いつもの様に望遠鏡を覗いていると、突然光のようなものを感じました。「何だ何だ」と周りを見回すと一瞬ですがまるで昼の様に周りの景色が見えるではないですか。周りの山や田んぼ、神社の境内がハッキリとみえるくらい明るかったです。そして一瞬で暗くなり満天の星が空に浮かびます。しばらくしてまた一瞬ですが周りが明るくなって空を見上げたら昼の様に空が見えました。また真っ暗になって最後にまたまた一瞬周りが明るくなって元の静寂な夜に戻りました。明るくなったのたぶん３回くらいで一瞬ですが自分がいるところだけじゃなくて全体が明るくなったという感じでとても不思議でした。「あれはいったい何だったんだ」と今でも思います。大人に聞いても「夜更かししていたから寝ぼけていたんだろ」というくらいに扱われて相手にされませんでした。

Theme: "Mysterious Stories" I’ve had a few mysterious experiences in my life, so I’d like to write about them here. 1. The night sky lit up as bright as day in the middle of the night This happened when I was in fifth or sixth grade. Back then, I loved stargazing, and I often woke up in the middle of the night to observe the stars. But where I lived in the city (Osaka), the light pollution made it hard to see the night sky, so I always looked forward to stargazing at my mother’s family home out in the countryside (Tamba-Sasayama). That summer, I got a new telescope, and when we went back to my mother's family home for the Obon holidays, I stayed up late, completely absorbed in looking at the stars. The weather was great that summer vacation, and I was thrilled to see so many things I couldn't see from the city—the Milky Way, the North Star, the Big Dipper, and countless other stars. I think it was on the third night of our stay. As I was looking through the telescope like usual, I suddenly sensed a flash of light. Wondering what it was, I looked around, and for a split second, everything around me was as visible as if it were broad daylight. It was so bright that I could clearly make out the surrounding mountains, the rice paddies, and the grounds of the local shrine. Then, in an instant, pitch darkness returned, and the sky was once again filled with stars. A little while later, everything lit up again for just a moment; when I looked up, the sky looked like it did during the day. Darkness fell once more, and then, after one final brief flash of light, everything returned to the quiet stillness of the night. It lit up about three times in total. Each flash lasted only a fraction of a second, but it felt like the entire area—not just where I was standing—was illuminated, which was utterly bizarre. Even now, I still wonder, "What on earth was that?" When I asked the adults about it, they just brushed me off, saying, "You were staying up too late, you must have been half-asleep."