My husband and I were on our honeymoon in Mexico and there was a large red star that we were commenting on night after night. Then as we were both watching it, it split in two and one half took off and we watched it move through space for several minutes. It was amazing.

It is a close enough to a tie between the guy blocking the tanks at Tiananmen Square and the night people partied on the top of the Berlin Wall.

The stars at night - from upon a prairie, a desert, or an ocean.

Rocket launches from my front porch in Satllite Beach, Florida.

Jane, are you sure you guys didn't take a wrong turn and end up in Area 51?

;-)

I think the most amazing thing I ever saw was watching tv in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon. Everyone had their eyes on the television set. If you had to go to the store or out to dinner, everywhere had tv sets turned on so you could watch the moon walks, etc.

It was wonderful.

It was quite freaky even that we were both looking at it the same moment and it took a long time when it split apart.

Two or three years ago when all the lights went out on the East Coast, we laid on our backs on the roof of our NYC apartment, with a bunch of people who couldn't get home because they couldn't find Brooklyn in the dark, and we watched the stars. It was unbelievable. NYC is bright as day all night, and suddenly, there was no light, nothing, and you could see millions and millions and millions of stars. At that moment, I felt so small and insignificant.

I love reading all of these!

Most amazing thing I ever saw was a herd of wild horses running across the plains in North Dakota, as a thunderstorm approached. They were bucking and whinnying, their manes wild - running and running and running - I've never seen anything like it. I felt like I was back in time or something.

Christian Bale driving the new and improved Batmobile. Holy monkeys.

But in all seriousness....tough call. When my two good friends came back from their second and third tour in Iraq, it was quite an amazing sight. There are others, but that's at the forefront, for sure.

The Statue of Liberty.

Okay, I didn't get so much of a good look at it, but it was amazing from what I could see. I was flying back from Europe, and it was a clear night. The statue was lit up, and the harbor right behind it. It's just like you'd imagine, just like a postcard.

As we were getting closer, I was all set to take a picture of it when we made this neck-breaking turn to avoid being shot down by the air defense artillery. I can't even claim I got to see the most beautiful stars I've ever seen - instead of seeing the beacon of hope, welcoming me to the melting pot that is America, I saw water.

So, somehow I've managed to stick water in here, but I didn't really see any fish or aquatic mammals. It was really that I was close to the Statue of Liberty, and all that stood for. That half-a-second glimpse was one of the best times of my life.

I should point out that this was after I'd been in Iraq for a year, and I would soon see the green, green grass at Ft. Dix, real women in real clothes, and be back with my family in my home.

Vince Young scampering for the winning touchdown in the Rose Bowl. That is a golden moment etched upon my mind.

Great stories everyone! I didn't think about stuff i'd seen on tv. But if i did, I would have to include seeing the spontaneous outpouring of people who lined the street when Ronald Reagan's body was driven from Pt. Mugu to the Reagan Library. That was totally unexpected and amazing. And I think tomorrow is the anniversary of his death.

Well just to stick to the nature genre:

Most Powerful - The eyewitness destruction from the eruption of Mt Pinatubo. Three days of pitch black with the earth continually shaking, and then the jungle disappeared over night. It was like awakening from a weeklong blizzard at dawns first light, only the snow was grey.

Most Wonderous - A mid-summer meteor shower in the Sierras in 1982. I thought that it was ALWAYS like that.

Most Calming - The waterfalls of Yosemite

Most Erotic - Debbie Miller's tits

When I was young and we still lived in Socal we would go out to the Colorado river for recreation.
One day after seeing lightning in the distant mountains we heard a tremendous roar and down the street, a flash flood cut through the earth on it's way to the river. Boulders the size of cars and anything else in it's path ended up in the river. It was an awesome display of nature.

At the time of my seeing this (age 11), I didn't quite understand the significance, but I do now. My father, a mechanical engineer at the time, knew one of the main project engineers involved with the workings of one of the world's largest telescopes. The telescope was near completion when my father's friend allowed us to see it. Words can't even express how small one feels before such a giant of man's creations. I felt even smaller when the rooftop opened up above us, giving us a huge, round view of the sky.

Funny, isn't it? The heavens will always fascinate human minds.

Depends on what you mean by amazing. I've had a porpoise come along side a kayak while in the Gulf of Mexico (the 40 pounds of shrimp we laid out on the table--fried, boiled, stewed--that night was pretty amazing). I've had a staring contest with a baracuda while snorkeling (he won... easily) on Hogsty Reef (which is amazing in its own rights because it has a WWII-era Liberty Ship run aground and still standing there, looking as if it's actually motoring along). In the stargazing category, being on a sail boat 20 miles out to sea... Wow. And the shooting stars. Or in Anza Barega (sp?) in southern California, where the silence is creepy.

The blackout was something else (having made my way back to Brooklyn in the dark with that mass of humanity). But I'd have to say walking from Park Slope to Brooklyn Heights on 9/11, seeing the ash on cars in the Heights and pieces of paper that had blown across the river, all those people coming over the Brooklyn bridge, the massive cloud of smoke.

And then yesterday, seeing how LITTLE fucking progress the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. has made. Grass growing in The Pit. Flooded in areas from all the rain collecting. But, hey, in five years they've managed to build an Info booth ... and had the multi-culti class to staff it with a Muslim woman wearing all black and a head covering (suprisingly, she wasn't wearing a full Burkha). Now that, my friends, is amazing.

Nikki Dial in Hard Bodies.

Kidding... KIDDING!!!

Well, there are several I can name (besides Ms. Dial):

1. Overflying South Pacific islands and seeing various rock formations jutting up out of the ocean from just a couple of thousand feet in the air. Gorgeous.

2. Sitting on a small beach in Surigao Del Sur in the Philippines, looking out northwest at the waves breaking on the reefs, realizing that, in looking in that direction, there was little between me and Hawaii but 5000 miles of ocean and maybe a stray tuna or two. Or three. Or four-thousand.

3a. Not a "most amazing sight", but a funny coda to the above: Sitting on that beach, literally a God-honest no joke 3 hours from anywhere, taking a peek at my cell phone, and seeing 5 bars of signal strength. Out in the middle of nowhere! Heaven forbid a Filipino be anywhere without texting coverage.

4. In a holding pattern above Chicago once, seeing an algae bloom on Lake Michigan from a mile or so up. It went on for miles. And you had to be up in the air to see it; I couldn't see any evidence of it once on the ground.

5. Passing in a ferry in New York through the shadow of the USS John. F. Kennedy aircraft carrier. Man, that thing is huge!

6. Standing on what was left of a huge tree (possibly redwood?) cut down long ago near San Francisco. I and three others could've made a bed out of that stump and had room to spare. Must've been 7 or 8 feet across, easily.

7. Including this just to show that it's not only superhuge things that amaze me: As a student, dissecting a tiny insect, much smaller than a period at the end of a sentence, to be shown that, in it's gut, were even tinier insectoids that aided it in digestion. I needed a microscope just to see the host, let alone see the things in it's gut. Wild.

Casca,

You were in Luzon and saw Pinatubo blow? Really? That must've been wild. Relatives tell me it was rather impressive, and they were miles and miles away.

Not only was I there... I was standing on the road with a battalion of Marines with live ammo as it started to boil in earnest on Saturday morning. We were going to take Clark back from the RoP security forces who were looting the place (quel surprise).

What's your PI connection?

Standing on top of the Great Wall of China and seeing it go on forever and ever...

aNNIKA,

Nice idea for a thread. The wonders that people have seen are amazing.

All I can think of at the moment is a sunset on a cool november evening with an early crescent moon rising to the south, as we drove around the San Carlos reservoir, out in the desert south of Tuson, arriving at the dam with not a sole in sight and suddenly hearing Percy Sledge singing "When a man loves a woman" blasting out of no where, echoing off the hills and mirror still water. The juxtaposition of the incredible stillnes and beauty with the great blues song was quite surreal. What we didin't see were 4 native american boys kicking back in the bed of their pickup with a six pac and a boom box behind some rocks.

The experience I missed and think might have been the topper of my life so far, was the night launch of the saturn V in '72 Apollo 17 Dec, 6. My girl friend at the time worked for ABC news and was assistant producing for the launch and got to sit in the bleachers a mile or two away. She had no words to describe the chest pounding power of it. They all felt as if they were going to be crushed out of existence.

Taking a train up the Corcovado in Rio and seeing the views from the huge forest on the way and then getting to the top and seeing the whole city of Rio laid out from that magnificent pek with the statue of Christo Redentor. Just a spectacular view. Reminded me of the view at the end of Black Orpheus, one of my favorite movies of all time. The whole city if gorgeous but that view from the trip up on a street car when the view is first on one side and then on the other with the huge old trees between is really magnificent. I sometimes think I would love to just move there.

It's pretty tough to choose, but if I have to, it's the total solar eclipse I travelled to see up in Canada in 1979. A 360 degree twilight, along with other phenomena, is a thing to behold.

The hands down most beautiful thing I've ever seen is the view from the Space Needle Observation deck in Seattle. We were up there (at 10pm!) and watching the sail boats in the bay and waiting for sunset... when a storm started rolling across the mountain range. You could literally see the clouds creeping down the sides of the mountain with lightening and everything, that was incredible. I wish I'd had a better camera then...I'd like to be able to remember it more clearly.

Wow! I can post from my Blackberry! Which actually sucks in a way, cause I'd rather be using the currently dead cable connection (stupid maintenance mutter mutter...)

Anyway Cas, I'm Filipino myself. Got relatives scattered around Cavite & Manila. I don't remember who exactly was telling me about it, but one of the blood relations on dad's side saw it when it was starting to blow. And, from what I understand, promptly got the hell outta there. Understandable. I thought much of the area was evacuated beforehand, but I'm obviously wrong. Either that, or he's pullin' our legs, can't tell which.

"or he's pullin' our legs, can't tell which."

well, it's either the left one or the right one.

;-)

EMH: (Groans, shakes head in disbelief...)

Well, I'd make a joke about a 3rd leg, but I'd either get banned, shot, or struck by lightning.

Nigel Powers: My lord! you're a tripod. What you been feedin' that thing, eh? It looks like a baby's arm holding an apple. Good thing is, if you ever get tired, you can use it as a kickstand!
Mini-Me: [Mini-Me nods, smiling]

One of the most awesome sights in Japan is sunrise on Mt. Fuji, looking down at the five glittering lakes lit up by the orange glow of the sun. But the most spectacular view of Fuji I ever had was from the air. We were flying back from Taipei, so the plane passed over Fuji on its way to Haneda Airport. As usual, there were two layers of cloud cover – one at about 30,000 feet, one at about 5,000. It was about 8:00 PM as we approached Tokyo, when the jet popped below the layer at 30,000 feet, so the scenery changed from billowy white to clear visibility, but the two cloud layers were lit up a bloody crimson from a sun as red as the one on the national flag. The whole pocket was as red as glowing coal. That mountain juts up from the alluvial pain all on its own – it nearest neighbors are miles away. So there was lonely Mt. Fuji, all 13,900 feet of it, jutting out of that lower 5000 foot cloud layer like an island in a sea of fire. Black with a small cap of white snow still visible at the summit. A couple of open patches in the lower cloud layer showed the pinpoint, twinkling lights of the towns of Fuji Go Ko glittering off of the lakes that they nestle beside. Just ethereal and awesome.

That's not only a cool sight John, but it's really well written! Now I totally want to go to Japan.

Standing on the edge of the Painted Desert and suddenly feeling like I was all alone, a million years ago, with nothing but the wind around me and the multitude of colors of the desert just going for miles.

I really felt like I had been transported.

Flying from London to Boston, I got to enjoy a six hour sunset. The colors changes were awesome.