An angel coming down from heaven? It is not a photomontage and it is a real show

The English photographer Lee Howdle managed to capture in a wonderful shot the very rare optical phenomenon of "glory".

Lee Howdle lives in England and is the manager of a supermarket; these days he is gaining media attention thanks to his passion for photography. The shot he posted on Instagram a week ago is traveling around the world. It is an image so intense and perfect that many suspect it was a photomontage; instead there is nothing false.

Mr. Howdle was walking on the hills of the Peak District national park, right in the heart of England, and he watched the spectacle of what might seem like a heavenly apparition but which instead is a wonderful and very rare optical effect: looking at the at the foot of the hill, in the fog, Howdle saw a giant silhouette surrounded at the top by a multicolored halo. He was in the right place to admire a deluxe version of his shadow, transformed by light and fog into a magical show:

My shadow seemed huge to me and surrounded by this rainbow. I took a few photos and kept walking, the shadow followed me and it looked like an angel standing next to me in the sky. It was magical. (from The Sun)

The optical phenomenon in question is called Brocken's Spectrum or "glory" and it is very rare to appreciate it. Let's explain what happens: it occurs when a person is on a hill or mountain and has clouds or fog below the height he is at, he must also have the sun behind him; at that point the shadow of one's body is projected onto the clouds or fog, whose water droplets hit by the sun's rays also create the rainbow effect. It occurs much more frequently with the shape of an airplane when it is in flight.

The name of this phenomenon derives from Mount Brocken in Germany, where the optical effect appeared and was described by Johann Silberschlag in 1780. Without the support of scientific knowledge that view inevitably aroused thoughts related to the supernatural, so much so that then Mount Brocken became a place of magical rites. In China, then, the same phenomenon is called Buddha Light.

It is inevitable that, seeing human reflections in the sky, our imagination opens up to suggestive hypotheses. In many other cases, even the mere presence of a cloud with an emblematic shape and appearance on the scene of a tragedy has made one think of celestial presences that came to the aid of human dramas. Of course man is led to feel the need to have a relationship with Heaven, but to let himself be carried away by pure suggestion - or worse, to linger on superstitions that have nothing truly spiritual - deprives us of that really great gift that God has given us : the wonder.

Looking at Howdle's shot as a pure optical effect does not remove the extraordinary from the scene, on the contrary, it brings us back to that true naturalness of a full gaze, which to be such must host amazement. The simple breakdown of sunlight into the rainbow color spectrum thanks to the presence of droplets of fog should bring our thoughts back to the observation that everything except that a generic case must be at the origin of Creation.

No superstition, open your eyes
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than your philosophy dreams of," said Shakespeare through the mouth of his Hamlet. Superstition is precisely the mental trap that prevents us from seeing reality in its amazing grandeur. Dreaming strange things, being slaves to our thoughts, takes us away from the place where God has put a thousand signs to call us: contemplating reality with a wide open and sincere heart generates in our intimate a question of meaning, the need to give a name to the Creator .

Yes, even a luminous effect that has something wonderful, triggers a sense of mystery and wonder in us that has nothing to do with the drifts of a spiritualistic suggestion. It is wonderful that in the context of optics we call "glory" what the photographer Lee Howdle has immortalized. Because glory, which we usually associate with the definition of "fame", speaks to us - going deeper - of a fullness that is clearly manifested. It is our destiny: one day we will understand clearly who we are; all the shadows that cover us outside and inside while we are mortal, will disappear and we will enjoy the eternal good of being as God thought of it from the beginning. When nature hosts phenomena of intense beauty that refer to our need for glory, the gaze becomes one with the soul.

Dante's great genius sensed this great human desire, evidently he tried it on himself first, and when he found himself beginning the most beautiful song of all, but which could seem the most abstract, namely Paradise, he planted glory already in the here and now of human reality. Thus begins the first song of Paradise:

The glory of him who moves everything

for the universe it penetrates and shines

in a part more and less elsewhere.

Just pure poetry? Strange words? What did it mean? He wanted to invite us to look at every fragment of space with the eye of true investigators: the glory of God - which we will enjoy in the afterlife - is already embedded in the reality of this universe; not in a pure and very clear way - in a part more and less elsewhere - yet there is, and who calls. The wonder we experience in the face of certain exciting natural spectacles is not only an emotional and superficial movement, but rather it is precisely to accept the invitation that God sowed in his creation. It calls our attention, to remind us that there is a design and purpose behind the complex plot of the existing. Wonder, in this sense, is an ally against despair.

source of this article and photos https://it.aleteia.org/2020/02/20/angelo-scendere-cielo-foto-brocken-spectre-lee-howdle/