By Petulia Clarke, Staff Reporter
The solar halo viewed yesterday from Customs House, Newport East, downtown Kingston. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer
NUMEROUS CALLS poured into The Gleaner's newsroom yesterday from puzzled Jamaicans who were seeking an explanation for a halo-like ring of light which surrounded the sun for much of the morning.
The Metereological Service described the phenomenon as a solar halo which is "produced by the refraction of light by ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere." These ice crystals, the Met Service said, now exist in the layer of high level cirrostratus clouds (second highest level clouds which are five or more miles above the earth) that cover sections of the sky extending from a frontal system that extends into the central Caribbean. The halo, it said, is from the same family of metereological phenomena as the rainbow.
But, some explanations, not so scientific, also poured into the newsroom.
Selbourne Tulloch, who described himself as "The Prophet" (from Deuteronomy 18: 14-20), describing the halo as a sign that Jamaicans are on the way to being delivered by God.
A previous halo in 1997, he said, marked the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This year's halo was seen on Holocaust Rememberance Day (April 29), the day of remembrance of the six million Jews who died at the hands of Germans in World War II, he said.
Mr. Tulloch said that this halo symbolised the "chosen people's" preservation from a spiritual holocaust that the Devil is trying to carry out against God's people.
He said that God sent the sign to assure his people that He is here to protect them and is at the point of binding the Devil and locking him up forever.
The last report of a halo encircling the sun was on April 25, 1997.
