Times Observer file photo The view of the City of Warren from the Washington Park overlook is obscured by a smoky haze last summer. The smoke descended into the region from wildfires in Canada. A similar event occurred in 1950, though concerns over the cause were of a much different nature.

Visibility was limited. The Sun wasn’t as bright as it should be.

But we had reports for days that the smoke was coming and guidance on what we should do about it.

What if you didn’t have that foreknowledge? Throw in some Cold War fears and imaginations could run wild.

They did just that in Sept. 1950.

Photo from the Warren Times Mirror The start of a story published above the fold on an incident of wildfire smoke that some thought was a sign of a nuclear attack.

Someone gave me a document highlighting interesting events in Warren and this was one of them. I had the document before last Summer and it was much more difficult than it is now to picture what the writer detailed.

“What were you doing Sunday afternoon, 3 p.m., Sept. 24, 1950? It got dark, as dark as any night ever was until 5 p.m., when it began to get light again. There was no wind, rain or any smell of smoke.

People were bewitched, bothered and bewildered as a cool clear Sunday afternoon was turned into a cold, pitch-black night.

Some thought with sinking hearts that an atomic explosion had occurred. Others thought a new secret weapon was being tested to darken targets from enemy bombers. This was before modern radar and guided missiles.

Thousands prayed for salvation, believing the end of the world was at hand.

Drivers burned up the highways for their homes when the darkness came. State police stopped many speeding motorists but made no arrests. Airplanes flying over Erie reported intense heat could be felt at altitudes of 13,000 feet.

The cause – immense smoke from forest fires burning over a 90 square mile thickly wooded area of northern Alberta sent the orange and black smoke pall sweeping over the 800 mile area of Canada and northeastern United States.

An Ashtabula, Ohio minister that Sunday used the text “The End of the World.” He stressed that the end would come with an orange glow and flash of light. The impressed church-goers returned home to find the skies already a brilliant orange.

Ashtabula police were flooded with calls, many from those who had listened to the sermon.”

If you think this sounds hyperbolic, you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.

But if you didn’t know the smoke was coming and you were living in a society that was fearful of a nuclear attack?

The Warren Times Mirror gave above-the-fold coverage to the issue the next day under the headline “Heavy Overcast of Smoke From Huge Forest Fires In Canada Turns the Afternoon Into Night.”

The story pulled from both local and wire incidents that occurred on that Sunday afternoon.

“A heavy overcast covered Pennsylvania yesterday, plunging much of the state into an early darkness, coloring the skies yellow, orange and purple and indirectly causing one death,” the Times Mirror reported. “Meteorologists attributed the overcast to palls of smoke drifting southward at high level from vast forest fires which have raged for the past week in northern Alberta, Canada.”

The blanket of smoke, 10,000 feet thick and extending over hundreds of miles turned day into night throughout Warren county. Street lights were turned on, and motorists drove with their car lights burning in an effort to penetrate the haze.

The eerie quality of the hazy had many residents thinking in terms of an atomic bomb or the “Day of Judgment” until an explanation that the blackout was caused by smoke palls was broadcast over the radio

At Starbrick, the blackness was so inky that the operators of the Dicky-Ben Speedway called off their racing program and issued rain checks for Sunday’s events.

A Blair County man, the report added, was killed when he attempted to cross the street in the darkness and was struck by a vehicle.

The director of the Felt planetarium in Philadelphia called the phenomenon “unique.” Dr. L.M. Levitt explained that “any kind of particles in the sky – dust, smoke or ice – can cause a change in the coloration of the sun as well as the sky itself.”

But, he added, he “had never heard nor seen” such a sun as was evident in the state yesterday.

Observers reported the floor of the sky ranged from pale yellow to brilliant aquamarine to bright lavender. Some folk thought an expected eclipse of the sun had come a day early.

Pittsburgh, which lost its title of the “Smoky City” some years ago, was blacker than night from 3 until shortly before 6 p.m.

Fans attending the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati doubleheader at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field saw part of the first game and all of the second under lights.

The same was true at Erie where the Erie Veterans opened their All American Football League season by playing the last three quarters under the lights.

An airline pilot flying over Erie at 25,000 feet reported he had to use instruments because of the smoke.

All through western Pennsylvania it was the same.

Newspaper offices and radio stations were flooded with inquiries.

Most children remained indoors.

Towns looked deserted although here and there adults gathered in neighborhood groups to look at the skies and wonder what was happening.

Police in most communities ordered street lights put on early. Motorists moved at a snail’s pace.

In some areas, even the chickens were fooled by the phenomenon. The chickens went to roost early.

But the smoke, about 3,000 feet thick, was moving out into the Atlantic Ocean and the weather bureau expected temperatures to return to their autumn normals as the sun again comes into view.

The reporting in a Associated Press story published in the Times Observer last June used some similar language

“Intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern U.S. in a dystopian haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside,” that report detailed. “The effects of hundreds of wildfires burning across the western provinces to Quebec could be felt as far away as New York City and New England, blotting out skylines and irritating throats. A smoky haze that hung over New York City much of the day Tuesday thickened in the late afternoon, obscuring views of New Jersey across the Hudson River and making the setting sun look like a reddish orb. In the Philadelphia area, dusk brought more of a lavender haze.

“Sal and Lilly Murphy, of Brooklyn, likened the burning scent to a campfire. They said they could even smell the smoke indoors, in a Manhattan restaurant, then walked outside and saw a sky that looked like it was about to storm — but was rainless. Lilly wore a mask for protection.

“It’s a little scary,” Sal Murphy said.”