I remember seeing the 1989 solar storm [1] in upstate New York. I was a little kid and thought aliens had come to Earth. I had never seen such things in the sky before - it was really beautiful.

When the power subsequently went out for two days, my parents got quite tired of me telling them it was an alien invasion.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm