No, there was no red.
Hannah Rickards
(2009)

Grand Haven stands on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan. Directly across the lake, but far beyond the horizon, is Milwaukee, over 80 miles away.

On an occasion in 1977 a temperature inversion over Lake Michigan caused a rare superior mirage over the lake, and the lights of Milwaukee’s skyline were visible from the Grand Haven shore. According to some accounts residents gathered along the shoreline, and on the following day the town’s paper printed a picture of the gathered crowds.

During the last 30 years some have seen the lights a number of times, and others, having scanned the horizon on many occasions, have only seen the occurrence once. Some report being able to see as far south as Chicago. Others speak of seeing an image of Milwaukee in which individual cars turning and traffic lights changing colour and building outlines. Some mention the golden arches of a McDonald’s restaurant being visible, and, with the greatest level of consistency, of Milwaukee’s Harbour Beacon, which with its specifically timed pattern of lights was enough to give a certainty to the sight they were witnessing. Their descriptions of it vary in approach and in content, some stating that the lights appeared to be one, five, fifteen miles off Grand Haven’s shore, varying in duration and clarity of the image they saw. All the witnesses speak of the occasion on which they first observed the phenomenon as being awestruck, amazed and doubtful if they could believe what they were witnessing.