Quite some time ago, the local TV stations upped the ante in their competition over weather coverage. While they’re quite competitive in local news, weather is really where it’s at. I don’t remember who’s first, but I remember I was working at KFYR at the time. The station held a contest among employees to come up with a name for the new camera. My entry: “Steve.” Obviously it didn’t get picked, so I didn’t in whatever swag they were giving away for the winning entry. But during the newscasts, on the control room headsets, we still referred to it as “Steve” for some time…at least until the novelty wore off.

You may notice that at night, Steve’s picture takes on a rosy glow. A pinkish hue. And that’s all the Seinfeld references I can come up with. In addition to the appearance that it’s on Mars or some other red planet, it starts to get wavy lines in it. Why, you ask, does the picture change? Good question…and it’s got a simple answer.

Steve resides atop the historic Patterson building in downtown Bismarck. It’s a great vantage point from central Bismarck and pretty much the highest feasible location from that part of town…plus, it’s a stone’s throw away from the studios. There are only two problems with that: the corners of the building have red obstruction lights on them that activate at dark, since aircraft landing at Bismarck Municipal Airport fly directly overhead. The camera automatically color-balances itself continually; when the world around it turns red, so does its picture.

How about the wavy lines? Note all those antennae you see around the camera (which is highlighted in red). Those are low-power FM antennas and other such radio gear. With that much radio frequency energy buzzing around it, Steve’s picture sensor picks it up and you see it in the form of wavy lines. Bummer. Try it yourself with your home camcorder: make a call on your cell phone, hold it next to your camera, and you’ll see the same sort of thing. It won’t be as pronounced, because your cell phone is not as powerful as several FM radio stations.

Now for the weird, spooky, Art Bell part of the post. While working late one night, I noticed this odd photo on the Skywatch camera. It captures a frame at a time over regular intervals and uploads them to the website to continually refresh it. This particular frame had just grabbed, so I saved a copy out of its computer right away. It shows an array of lights over Bismarck, over the Cathedral tower. From the camera’s perspective, it’s looking northwest. If you’re into conspiracies, perhaps you’ll think it looks like this phenomenon:

These are the notorious Phoenix Lights, a pattern of lights that appeared over Phoenix in the mid- to late 1990s. They caused an enormous uproar, as they were seen by an overwhelming number of people. Even local government was involved in trying to figure out what they were. Some people swore they saw a giant, silent floating triangular craft with those lights along its edge, others I think saw multiple UFOs. In any case, it’s never been explained to everyone’s satisfaction. I don’t endorse any particular theory, I just sat back and enjoyed the chaos that ensued after the event. So…did Bismarck have its own eerie phenomenon, one that went largely unnoticed by most of Bismarck-Mandan’s population…but not by the watchful eye (sensor) of Steve? And, I suppose an attentive control room operator. I guess we’ll never know.

I did some reporting for Art Bell’s “Coast to Coast AM” program during the 1997 flood, but I never sent in this photo. Now that the Phoenix Lights phenomenon is a distant memory, I doubt any of the UFO community would be interested in this picture anyway.

So, that’s it…the story of Steve. Time for me to bolt to work…have a great Wednesday!