NASA was forced to issue an emergency statement on Wednesday after detecting what senior scientists had described as “oh no, what the hell is that” glowing from Western Michigan around Grand Rapids.
The source? Grand Valley State University’s annual Neon Day, which this year achieved what experts are calling “astronomical levels of brightness.”
The incident began at approximately 8:00 AM when the first students arrived on campus dressed in colors that, according to one faculty member, “don’t exist in nature for a reason.” By 10:30 AM, pilots who had flown over Michigan had reported retinal damage.
“I’ve seen a lot in my twenty years teaching here,” said one professor wearing neon orange pants, a neon yellow blazer, a neon green tie, neon pink socks, and what appeared to be a neon purple mustache. “But I’ve never had to apply sunscreen indoors before.”
The situation escalated dramatically around noon when the International Space Station made contact with Mission Control in Houston. “Houston, we have a problem,” radioed the ISS commander. “There’s a second sun. Repeat: SECOND SUN. It just appeared over the Great Lakes, and it’s…it’s pulsating…”
“Define pulsing,” Mission Control responded.
“It’s like someone turned Earth into a nightclub in the middle of the day. We can see individual waves of neon. There’s movement. A lot of movement. Wait…is that a conga line?”
NASA immediately deployed its planetary defence protocols and called an emergency meeting with NOAA, the Department of Defence, and, for some reason, the CDC.
After forty-two minutes of frantic analysis as to what this pulsating mess could possibly be, one junior data analyst reportedly raised her hand. “Um, guys? I think that’s just a college.”
Satellite imagery confirmed it: 25,000 humans wearing every variation of neon ever made, plus some colors that appeared custom-created to cause migraines. Neon green and purple. Neon turquoise and yellow.
On campus, the health center treated 73 cases of ‘acute neon exposure.’ Campus Safety responded to 114 calls, most of them screaming. “I look like a highlighter threw up on me,” said one student in neon pink from head to toe. “But so does everyone else. I saw a professor wearing neon orange Crocs with neon yellow socks. CROCS.”
By 7:00 PM, the campus had mostly returned to normal, though NASA reported they would be keeping “an eye on West Michigan, just in case” for the foreseeable future.
