When 'angels' and 'crosses' appeared in U.S. skies at sunrise from New York to Hawaii
There was an extraordinary day when many came to say God was showing Himself in the sky.
A series of highly unusual and breathtaking images of the sun were seen and photographed in a short space of time from New York to Hawaii in January 2016, with some seeing angels and crosses, WND reported.
The Bible uses terms describing the morning sun to refer to divine beings such as angels and God Himself, sources said.
The fallen angel Lucifer is mentioned in the Old Testament, which states: "How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!" (Isaiah 14:12 New International Version)
And Jesus declared in the final book of Scripture: "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." (Revelation 22:16 King James Version)
In Hawaii, photographer Amy Langley saw a majestic and highly unusual sunrise. "The sunrise was so beautiful on my way to work that I stopped on the side of the road and snapped a photo," she said.
When she posted the photo on Facebook, her friends were equally stunned, saying she photographed an "angel."
"Looks like an angel," said one of Langley's friends on Facebook.
Others suggested: "Your guardian angel" as well as "an angel or a dove."
Langley told WND she photographed the sunrise at 7:15 a.m. on the Wednesday with her Samsung 5 phone while standing outside of her car, not looking through the windshield.
"The shape is only in the photo," said Langley. "It looked like a normal giant pink sun [when taking the picture]!"
That same morning of Jan. 13, 2016 Mechaele Loraff pulled her vehicle over in Buchanan, Michigan, to take a photo of the sunrise.
When she looked at the photo, she noticed an obvious shape of a cross.
"I did not see it till after I took the picture," Loraff told WND. "I was focused on the sunrise and the beam of light going straight up! The cloud reflecting in the shape of a cross was a bonus!"
Loraff's photo of the sunrise cross went viral after she shared it with a meteorologist at a local TV station.
Just days earlier on Jan. 8, another woman, Erika Redner Winn of Pine Valley, New York, took a photo of a different solar cross on the horizon at sunset.
"I appreciate all of the love that this photo is getting," Winn said. "The sunset, painted by my Jesus, gave me such peace and hope. ... I pray that peace will touch everyone who feels that way about such a beautiful photo of such an amazing sky."
Meanwhile in Hawaii, although many of Langley's friends described the photo she posted on her Facebook page as that of angel, her other friends had different opinions.
They said: "Looks like a Pringle chip"; "VIP stop sign"; "North Korean Nuclear Test?"; "Mickey Mouse"; "Fortune cookie!"; and "A dragon. Must have escaped from the Game of Thrones."