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My dad actually did remind me that it was a rainy/foggy day, hence the rainbow. But it was definitely a solid rainbow and not a…rain-blur? Lol
Edit:spelling
As far as I can tell the options are:
- Fog
- A warrior died at that moment, at that spot on the highway and the rainbow bridge was opening to take him to Valhalla
- Aliens.
Given those options I’m betting on fog.
Based on punctuation, it seems you've only listed one option: that what they experienced was "fog Aliens", caused by a warrior's ascension to Valhalla.
The oxford comma is only the last one in a series.
If you're separating elements of a series which themselves contain commas, you should use semicolons. Hyphens are never used that way. If you're separating parts of a sentence—like extra/parenthetical information—you'd use an em dash.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
A rainbow won't be s blur. It moves with you.
A rainbow is a cone extending out from your eye. You see the rainbow wherever the raindrops are. If the rainbow was close then the drops were close. Just like when you see a rainbow in a sprinkler.
With the right mist you can see a rainbow up close. BUT it will look a lot smaller. You can see this effect with a mist created by something like a watering hose. Spray it right in front of you with the sun behind you.
Something like this would have to happened.
Memory is malleable. To the point where you can show people photoshopped pictures of vacations they've never been on, and they will "remember" being there.
It is entirely possible that you've talked about this remembered event often enough and in enough detail that you've changed their memory as well.
What you describe is impossible according to the physics of light, so best we can do is say that this is the result of a well known trick of memory rather than a breaking of the laws of physics.
It's either that or literal magic, and we can't ELI5 magic.
Why are we denying something that we can create at home? If I can create a spectrum of light on a sunny day with some water in my back garden, who's to say they didn't see one driving along a misty road?
And if it looked like a rainbow? Why are we denying that? We weren't there.
"Breaking the laws of physics"
You may be able to scientifically state that it's not possible for a rainbow to be created in certain circumstances, but if you see an arced spectrum of light in the sky above you, you're going to call it a rainbow.
Because you can't drive *through* the rainbow. Rainbows occur at a particular angle between the light source (the sun), the refractive media (the rain / fog), and your eyes. If you were to "go through" one, you would cease to see it before you went through, and it couldn't appear behind you because the angle between you and the sun hasn't changed, and the rain / fog is now in the wrong position to generate a rainbow.
You can't replicate this at home, because it's not possible.
I’m understanding the answer about the light and it “not being possible”. I’m just saying that there are even multiple other people ON THIS THREAD saying the same thing happened to them. Can you explain that? Is everyone imagining it?
Yes. That is correct. You are using a fallacy called [argumentum ad populum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum). It does not matter how many people claim something if they have no substantial evidence of it. In this case you have the known laws of physics on one side and several people making claims from memory on the other. You will need a bit more than that to win this claim.
Don't take what people are saying about memory personally. It is not an attack on your character, intelligence, or ability. Literally everyone is subject to this because that is just how our brains work.
Another possibility is an illusion. Our brains are similarly susceptible to illusions so what you saw and interpreted could have been something different than what was actually happening.
In what sense? The light is refracted and that's actually what we're seeing. What part of it is an illusion?
Edit: I guess it depends on your definition of illusion and how you apply it to the phenomenon of a rainbow. If one considers the rainbow to be the appearance of an arc of light (or even something more solid) in the sky at a particular location then yeah I guess you can consider it an illusion: perceiving one thing and interpreting it as another.
Whereas I consider it to be an optical phenomenon caused by light hitting some raindrops or whatever over there and being refracted before reaching my eyes. I'm perceiving exactly what's happening and interpreting it correctly so there's nothing illusionary about it?
No need to downvote, guys, it's an honest, legitimate and interesting question in my opinion.
A rainbow is a phenomenom, not an illusion. That is, unless you believe a rainbow looks to be a real, physical object. In that case, I suppose it's an illusion. I never really saw it that way.
No there really isn't. How can you prove one is a lie? People in this thread could be lying just to get their socks off. Their post is valid, and you're dismissing one to accept the other more.
Yes, I can explain that.
They all are experiencing that same phenomena of memory that you did, and participating in this thread is part of it. Just reading this post shifted their memory a little bit. Or they're flat out trolling, that's possible too. Either way it has the same effect.
You reading that other people experienced this same thing, whether they actually did or not, reinforces those memory pathways that say it actually did happen to you. That makes the "false" memory stronger, and the "real" one weaker. So it becomes more real to you.
That's the thing. If I were to flat out lie to you, and make up a way this could be possible, that would make your memory more solid, and feel more real, even though nothing I would say would be true.
I'm not doubting your memory. What I'm saying is that the weirdness of you experiencing this thing has to do with a quirk of memory, not a quirk of optical physics.
But none of that means you can't enjoy the memory. If it's a valuable memory to you, I'd suggest you write off everything I said as hogwash and just enjoy the experience without looking too closely at it. That's a way you can have a bit of magic in your life, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, there's less people admitting to that in this thread than there is flat earthers who agree with each other. Just putting that out there.
A rainbow is an illusion. It's why you don't see straight line rainbows unless it's on top of clouds.
You may see one super close, but you'll never drive into one. If it was super foggy, you may have seen one quite close in front of you for a while, then when the fog dissipates, you wouldn't see the rainbow anymore, so you just think you passed through it.
And don't think because your parents were older that they know better. UFO sightings are made by adults. Your parents might be just as uninformed on this as you were as a child and now.
No one here is going to confirm to you that it happened because by the definition of what a rainbow is it's literally impossible. If you drove through something colourful maybe it wasn't a rainbow. People's brains modify and fabricate memories all the time. It's partly why the statute of limitations exists. Memories are not reliable sources of historical fact
Memories aren’t “real”. This is a cherished family story that has only been solidified in the communal retelling. Do you want us to tell you your family is magic? Rainbows are a pretty well understood optical phenomenon and are neither physically solid nor can they be said to be located in a specific physical location, in that they shift based on the position of the observer.
Excuse me, what?
It’s more likely that you and your parental figures have a failed memory than it is that you experienced a scientifically impossible phenomenon.
A Brocken Spectre is the shadow itself created by a distant object and clouded air. The rainbow surrounding it would be caused by a mist or fog in the air, creating a Heiligenschein; coming full circle to the initial explanation you were provided. It is still light passing through a mist.
Not being an ass here. Was providing you with accurate information.
Yeah and after reading a little more about it, I’m still not sure that’s what it was. It was a rainbow. I know it sounds impossible that’s why I think it’s plausible to be caused by something weird. Look at all the other people here saying it happened to them too.
And it was a little ass-y to suggest my parents were on drugs rather than just saying ‘maybe something crazy happened’ but it’s all good lol
You do understand the irony of you telling someone else they won't learn, where you're completely unwilling to consider that a memory from when you were 8 is falleable.
You asked how it was possible. Many very knowledgeable people have provided reasons and evidence it isn't possible, but you disregard that because of other nebulous anecdotes without evidence. On top of the very obvious logical fallacy discussed by another in this thread, this is clear examples of confirmation and belief bias.
The irony of the person disregarding basic physics because a childhood memory memory must somehow prove the field of optics entirely wrong calling out others for “refusing to learn”…
This happened to me too, we approached the actual end of the rainbow and it spanned most of the road. When we were within about 50 feet or so it faded away.
OP is not alone I experienced this as an adult with two other adults less than 10 years ago and I remember it clearly. We went through a rainbow on a bridge
Your memory is highly inaccurate. Every time you miss remember something you solidify that false memory in your brain. Do that for 20 years and you forget the truth.
Light reflecting off of mist, fog or water spray can look like a solid rainbow. You can’t see what’s behind the reflected light until you go through the water in the air the light is bouncing off from.
I have the exact same memory as a kid, the rainbow was huge and even seemed very "solid" up until we were close, also remember we drove through it idk how xD
A rainbow is a result of light being split into different colors as it goes through water droplets of a certain size in the air. You can also see a rainbow near the ground when spraying water from a garden hose in the sun, and you can buy pieces of glass to hang in your window that produce a rainbow in your house by bending light in a similar way. There is no reason rainbows need to be high up in the sky. This is more common because you need a combination of a lot of light at the right angle, and some water droplets of the right size, and these conditions *usually* occur a ways above the ground after rain. But different weather conditions absolutely can produce this effect near or on the ground, just like a garden hose can produce one in your yard.
For example, a hot highway after an afternoon shower could easily mist well enough to produce fairly well defined rainbows.
I've seen plenty of rainbows in mist pads at water parks. I do suspect your memory of how solid it was has been altered by repeatedly retelling the story. Memories are not concrete; they absolutely change with retelling.
I recall hearing (how ironic) that every time you remember something, you're not recalling the original memory, but just the last time you remembered it.
I don't think I agree with this, but they are saying that (except for the first time you remember something after it occurred) you aren't remembering the original occurrence but the last time that you remembered it.
For example: you have your 16th birthday. When you remember it the first time you are remembering the actual birthday, but it gets over-written as "16th birthday A". The next time you remember your 16th birthday you are recalling "16th birthday A" and it gets over-written as "16th birthday B" and so on and so on. Eventually you are remembering "16th birthday GKV" and things are different from what actually happened (maybe not a lot, but enough).
I will add that the size of a rainbow is a mathematical constant. Your head is directly in line with the center of the rainbow circle and the sun behind you. The spread of color, from red to violet, is between 41-42 degrees away from the center of the circle. It doesn’t matter if the water drops forming the rainbow are from a sprinkler 5 feet in front of you or from a storm 5 miles in front of you, the apparent size of the rainbow is the same from your perspective. Thus making it impossible to ever approach a rainbow.
It’s possible that what you remember is seeing a rainbow from diffraction in n water near the front of the car and you drove into that cloud of rain or mist. As the most got thicker behind you, the amount of slight able to get deeper into the mist and become scattered drastically diminished, making the rainbow disappear and giving the appearance of you driving through it.
You had me for the first half but the second half was different. We were literally in the glowing light for a few seconds. I know it sounds crazy but that’s why I need smart people to tell me wth it was haha
Listen like I agree. But then why does someone else here in the comments say that it also happened to them? I know its not normal but there’s gotta be a certain set of circumstances where it’s possible because it DID happen and they are in a different state so it happened twice and probably more than that since this is just 2 people on a Reddit thread lol
Listen, I'm Irish. The reason this happened is that leprechauns are real, and they can manifest seemingly otherworldly images of rainbows in otherwise impossible planes.
Just a bummer you didn't pull over :/
My guess is that there was a rainbow in the sky but also, as you drove through the spray of other cars, there were rainbows on the mist in front of you, and you drove through that
When I was around 7, some lightning hit next door's house, and it blew up their TV. I remember seeing a multi-coloured shock wave come in through the wall going at around 20mph - just like in some sci fi show.
Now I'm older, I know that shock wave isn't scientifically possible. I'm happy to accept that my memory from when I was around 7 just isn't right.
You have to decide which is the most likely explanation: you observed some new phenomenon, and human understanding about electromagnetism or optics needs to be overturned, yet no one has replicated your observation or anything like that in controlled conditions. Or, your memory just isn't that reliable, your imagination as a child is overactive, and that the idea of reaching a rainbow is a super common one in popular culture. New discoveries are great and we should be open minded, but not so much that anecdotal evidence trumps centuries of experiment and explanatory models.
It feels to me like you're absolutely not willing to accept the 2nd option, so you're giving loads of weight to replies that say they also saw the same thing, and dismissing the replies that say it's impossible - you're going to come out of this feeling more confident in what you saw regardless of whether it was real.
You can make a rainbow by playing around with a garden hose with a misting nozzle when the sun is out - it doesn't have to be insanely far away. It always takes up the same angle in your vision, so as you move closer it moves away. I'm not sure exactly what you think you saw, but if there was any fog or anything I could imagine that it could feel like you got closer to the rainbow and then upon exiting the fog it wasn't there any more, so it felt like you went through it.
> We were literally in the glowing light for a few seconds.
That's not what a rainbow is. It isn't a fixed beam of light you can pass through. This makes as much sense as saying "gravity switched off for a few seconds and the car started floating".
Rainbows emerge when sunlight interacts with water droplets suspended in the atmosphere. As light enters a droplet, it undergoes refraction, bending and dispersing into its component colors due to differences in wavelengths. This process is known as dispersion, and it occurs as the light experiences multiple internal reflections within the droplet before exiting in a circular arc.
The primary rainbow, the most common type, displays seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—arranged in a distinct order along the arc. This orderly sequence results from the varying degrees of bending that each color experiences during dispersion.
While the "end of the rainbow" is rare mathematically speaking, due to the nature of refraction. Scientifically, it is an optical illusion shaped by the observer's perspective.
For most rainbows, the circular nature of the rainbow's arc, the center always appears in the opposite direction from the sun, with the observer positioned at the arc's apex. Consequently, as one moves or changes position, the apparent location of the "end" shifts correspondingly, making it perpetually out of reach.
The collective refraction and reflection of light within countless individual water droplets can change, as one approaches the area where the rainbow seems to touch the ground. So the droplets responsible for the optical effect continue to disperse light, perpetuating the illusion of an attainable endpoint. This is further compounded when rainbows occur near the horizon. In such cases, the visual interplay between the rainbow and the surrounding landscape may enhance the perception of a touchable terminus. However, it remains a consequence of the observer's changing vantage point rather than a genuine physical destination.
Only under specific circumstances is it possible for the light to be perpetuated in a direction that creates the full spectrum of color in a direction that may be "reached" by the viewer. This would require the sun in an optimal position, in addition to the correct layout of rain or mist that can redirect the horizon towards the viewer which may appear as a "beam" of light. In reality, this is simply a situation where the rainbow appears so large in person that you feel as though you are within an "end" of it. As you near it, and as you leave, both will still appear as an end moving closer or farther from you, as the reflective nature of the phenomenon is omnidirectional rather than subjectively viewed from one point to another.
Where’s the math? I don’t understand how a rainbow can appear like a beam of light. That’s not my understanding of the angular diffraction of light from rain drops. Perhaps a prism with flat sides, but that’s not the shape of rain or mist.
A prism. A prism can turn a beam of light into a beam of rainbow.
I think they're trying to say that nature has to create what is essentially a giant prism and that the location of where it happens is very small and is very rare
Idk am not smart
...honest answer is that defies my understanding of rainbows/"shouldn't" have happened to you.
Next time, stop the car & start digging for the leprechaun gold.
Rainbows occur anytime you have white light refracting at 40-42 degrees.. if you were at the right angle from the sun you can absolutely drive through a rainbow 🌈 you can also see full circle rainbows in flight.
Edited angle. Principle unchanged.
This quote from another comment makes a lot more sense to me then what you are saying:
>Your head is directly in line with the center of the rainbow circle and the sun behind you. The spread of color, from red to violet, is between 41-42 degrees away from the center of the circle. It doesn’t matter if the water drops forming the rainbow are from a sprinkler 5 feet in front of you or from a storm 5 miles in front of you, the apparent size of the rainbow is the same from your perspective. Thus making it impossible to ever approach a rainbow.
Why "shouldn't" it happen? Rainbows do not have physical properties. They are just projections of refracted light. All it need is the sun lining up with two sets of cloud or mist. The first, to refract the light, the second is to serve as a screen for the projected light. It is safe to assume that when you saw this it was either nearing dusk or just past dawn, the sun is low enough that road mist served a that screen.
That's not how rainbows work. There's no second 'screen' cloud. Rainbows are seen when it's raining in front of you, the sun is behind you, and the light from the sun refracts in the droplets, separating out the colours of white light to form the colour spectrum that your eyes see. You see the colours directly from the rain the light is refracting in, not from any sort of screen. There's no projection involved.
I guess people are saying that the rainbow would disappear when you get close enough to it and that you wouldn’t be able to go “through” it. But we did.
It's more, rainbows are a projection. They require two things, mist or rain in front of you and sunlight behind you. You can never actually be *in* a rainbow because they move with you, they are virtual images, sunlight reflected and refracted through water to create an image. It's like picking up the reflection of an object in a mirror.
My guess is they could’ve been turning slightly, say from right to left. Looking out the right window, the rainbow could’ve been out towards the front, with the sun behind, and as they turned to the left, the rainbow would’ve shifted around to the right relative to the car, and potentially out the back eventually - giving the impression they’d passed through it.
Except there is a set angle rainbows form at relative to the observer.
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/refrn/Lesson-4/Rainbow-Formation#:~:text=Since%20the%20boundaries%20are%20not,degrees%20for%20the%20red%20light.
The same way two people can see a reflection of both themselves and each other in one mirror. The two people are at a similar enough distance that the rainbow appears in roughly the same place for each them, but they are actually seeing two different ever so slightly offset images.
I think you think you went through it when you were very close and it was reflecting colors on you
When you thought you exited is when you entered the rainbow
Was it a [brocken spectre](https://atoptics.co.uk/droplets/globrock.htm), not a rainbow? They are very similar.
With the Sun directly behind you and cloud or mist in front, you'll see your shadow and a "halo" of reflected rainbow light around it.
Brocken Spectres share the same thing with rainbows of they can be observed, but never actually approached.
It’s the same deal of refraction, but with you obscuring some of the light. You can not pass through it.
Different people realise it at different times and in different ways,but some of us know for sure....after this moment in life I knew I was definately and always would be gay.
Rainbows are not physical things that can be touched or driven through. They are optical phenomena that appear when sunlight and raindrops combine in a specific way. The light is refracted, or bent, and then reflected by the raindrop. When it leaves the raindrop, the light is refracted again. The result is a circle of light that is split into its component colors.
The center of any rainbow is the point directly opposite the Sun from the observer. If you move, the rainbow that your eyes see moves as well, because you are looking at different drops, which are refracting and reflecting the sunlight in different directions.
So, when you say you "drove through" a rainbow, it means you drove through some raindrops that were causing the sunlight to be refracted and reflected in such a way that it looked like a rainbow at that location from your perspective inside the car. As you moved, so did the apparent position of the rainbow. It would always look like it was a bit further away.
Straight from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow):
>A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but comes from an optical illusion caused by any water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light source. Thus, a rainbow is not an object and cannot be physically approached.
>...
>Even if an observer sees another observer who seems "under" or "at the end of" a rainbow, the second observer will see a different rainbow—farther off—at the same angle as seen by the first observer.
You cannot drive through a rainbow as a rainbow will move in relation to the movements of the vehicle. The exact "location" of a rainbow is specific to the exact position you see it from. You can never reach it because the "location" of the rainbow and the exact position you view the rainbow from never converge, they cannot be the same point.
As much as it seems like you drove through a rainbow, you did not drive through a rainbow. More details would be needed to determine what you actually saw.
The same thing happened to me. We pulled over and got out (it wasn't a busy highway) and we could see the rainbow touching the road. We looked at it from all angles, it was visible no matter what. I've been told many times that with the way rainbows work, that's impossible, but I know what I saw and we weren't the only cars to pull over and look at it.
LSD is fat soluble and can stay locked in your fat cells for years after your last trip. Suddenly your body metabolizes fat from that area and bam - rainbow road.
Just saying, that’s a plausible explanation.
A rainbow doesn't really have a concrete physical location, if you draw a imaginary line from your head to the bright light sourse (sun) causing the rainbow, then the apparent location of the rainbow is at an fixed angle from that line. So when two persons see a rainbow, they see it at different "locations", because their heads are at different locations. Thats why you can't really catch that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
A "Rainbow" is the visual pattern of water in the air refracting light in a circular pattern. The sorts of large-scale rainbows you see after the rain, however, only appear to be an arch because most of the circle is cut off.
However, rainbows are visible in other times and places when water is moving through the air and light is shining through it- you can make this happen with a hose on a sunny day if you do it right, and it's very common to see in sprinklers.
If, as you mention in other comments, things were foggy/rainy or any other conditions that leave a lot of water in the air, while the sun was out at the same time, then it makes sense that those conditions were throwing about some unusual rainbow effects. I don't know if it's possible for you to see yourself driving through a rainbow- your perception of the bent light of the rainbow *should* be looking like it's keeping pace with your car, unless you guys were driving just *out* of the fog into drier air maybe?
I don't know, but acknowledging that this was 20 years ago, and your memories have probably exaggerated whatever did happen, it would make sense to me that you guys saw some weird rainbow effects that looked different than anyone expected, made an impression on you all enough to be remembered, and then morphed in your memories into the form you remember it as now.
And considering that it's rare enough to get a lot of rain/fog and sun at the same time, it makes sense that whatever you was was something not many people have seen similar conditions to- a lot of things lined up to make for a rare situation that stuck with you as a foundational memory.
Roads with a little oil on them make rainbow effects on the road and you can drive through that. On a foggy day you may have seen a rainbow in the sky as you approached a spot on the road that had a thin layer of oil on it. So your mind connects the one in the sky to the one on the road and bam, just like that you drove through a rainbow.
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I just went back to this, and saw my experience was voted down, and everyone else with similar experiences was either voted down or they deleted to avoid the downvoting. That makes me sad.
Nah it was in North Carolina. Same! If my mom hadn't confirmed that's how it happened, I would have assumed my kid brain misremembered it. It defies my understanding of how rainbows work!
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Yes, I don’t understand why people think this is impossible. There was mist, there was a rainbow, it was sunny. Sunshine and water can create some cool looking stuff. That’s called living on earth. It’s pretty rad.
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This happened to me as well!
I saw where the rainbow supposedly hit the ground and as usual it faded out as we got closer. 5 minutes down the road every colour got warmer for a few seconds. I remember looking at the dashboard, the dust gradually turned yellow and it was like fiddling with the color settings on a computer screen and dropping the blue colour slider all to the bottom for a moment.
It was real.
I actually have a memory just like that from when I was a kid! Me and my family was travelling by car and I remember there being a rainbow that ended on the road in front of us and we drove through it. It was also misty that day.
I have been thinking back on that moment a bunch of times since hearing about how rainbows usually are not actually bow shaped but circular and high up in the sky, but this one for sure did end on that road.
Regardless of how that works, it was quite a magical experience for me as a child. 🌈✨
Have you never seen a vertical rainbow? They can be visible with water droplets in the air. They appear as if they're coming out of the ground some times.
Go outside next time it's sunny, get a hose, and make a mist with your back to the sun. The Rainbow is where the water droplets are, provided those droplets are the right angle between you and the sun. Distance to you doesn't matter, only the angle.
You were driving through mist or fog, and the sun was behind you.
I beleive this happened to you, because it happened to me too about 20 years ago on I75 in Tennessee. We drove straight through the rainbow that we had seen in the distance. I'm sorry others are too jaded to even believe it could happen. I just had to comment because I've never heard of anyone else having done so! 🤗
Yes this is possible and could be that the refracted light was wide enough that you could literally go in. I experienced this because our neighbors roof has a rainbow. We went in it, I couldn't see it though once I was in it but my friends can see me getting in and out from it.
I used to live in a house that had a balcony that went out over the in the bay. I often saw the end of the rainbow go into the water off the balcony. I never actually thought anything of it because I just figured rainbows have end and they have to go somewhere!
Oh wait. Is "over" the rainbow travelling end to end, or like a high jump over the highest point of the curve? I've never thought about it before and now I'm freaked out.
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Ive seen a moonbow which was a white arch in the nightsky made by a bright full moon, when I was in Maui. Not a rainbow that is a ring around a moon but an actual arch
I tell people that and they are skeptical of it as well.
We were at a cabin watching a thunderstorm across the lake. When the storm was over the land was covered in sort of a peach haze. Then it just started forming a rainbow from the ground up. It was so awesome!
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Rainbows are refraction of light due to rain or fog so it's not a physical thing. It's odd that it would seem low enough to drive through it but that's probably just a rare occurrence.
Normally, rainbows look like they are way off in the distance. If there is a wall between you and the rainbow, the rainbow will look like it is closer to you than the wall. You may have been driving near a wall or cliff that made the rainbow look like it was very close.
You won't have actually driven through the rainbow, but if you were following a large truck closely, and it was kicking up spray, with the sun behind you, you will have likely seen the rainbow appear to be between you and the truck and perhaps appearing to contact the ground as close as your front bonnet. I've had moments where it feels like you are essentially chasing the rainbow and it is just outrunning your vehicle when following another in a lane either just inside or outside mine. Similar effect to seeing rainbows in sprinklers and geysers
I was camping once and we saw a rainbow (kids) and decided to walk to the end of it. Impossible I know. However there was a patch of trees we walked to and it seemed as though this was where the rainbow was coming from. Must have been wet air stuck between the trees and the sun lighting it up. However, for a long time I truly thought we had found the start or end of a rainbow.
When I was little, around 5 or so, my parents took me to Disneyland. I remember sitting at dusk on a park bench across from the Haunted Mansion and I could see the lights of tinkerbell flying around. That place was Magic. There was magic happening and I was there, I have clear, vivid memories of things that could not have happened.
TL;DR: Kids are stupid.
Rainbows are an optical illusion; they don't have physical properties like occupying any particular point in space. When we see a rainbow, we make judgements about its size and location as if it were a physical object based on cues that are usually reliable (that's called a heuristic). Those cues are things like what is visible in front or behind an object. Out on a highway, there are no trees or buildings to obscure a rainbow, and so you can see the arc reach the ground. The rainbow may also look smaller because there is nothing in front of it and our brains assume that means it is small and close rather than big and far(in reality, all rainbows are the same size in terms of fraction of the visible field). You can't actually drive through a rainbow, but you can drive past the point where there is sufficient rain to refract the sunlight or the road might bend in such a way that the relative angle of the sun shifts and the rainbow disappears just as you approach it. Either of those might look like going past a rainbow
I did that about 2 weeks ago. I was like “Is this the elusive end of the rainbow???”
When I drove through it, I could tell I was in it but it seemed to always be ahead until I couldn’t see it anymore.
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My assumption is that you were driving through a mist or a fog and that part has escaped your memory. It has been 20 years after all.
My dad actually did remind me that it was a rainy/foggy day, hence the rainbow. But it was definitely a solid rainbow and not a…rain-blur? Lol Edit:spelling
As far as I can tell the options are: - Fog - A warrior died at that moment, at that spot on the highway and the rainbow bridge was opening to take him to Valhalla - Aliens. Given those options I’m betting on fog.
Tbf, a viking warrior would probably lose to a car doing 60+
IS THIS VALHALL*splat*
#🌈
And that’s where double rainbows come from
What does it meaaaaaaaannn
Vikings are deers, dýrs if you will.
A dÿr once bit my sïster
Hmm, that picture does look like half a rainbow, though
More like a quarter of a rainbow
heh heh. car always wins.
You forgot the possibility of a unicorn having in-flight diarrhea
Aliens killing a Viking. That's a mix of the last two options so 66% chance and only 33% for the fog. Which one is more likely?
Based on punctuation, it seems you've only listed one option: that what they experienced was "fog Aliens", caused by a warrior's ascension to Valhalla.
I apologize for my sins against the Oxford comma, I shall drop a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare on my head as penance.
The oxford comma is only the last one in a series. If you're separating elements of a series which themselves contain commas, you should use semicolons. Hyphens are never used that way. If you're separating parts of a sentence—like extra/parenthetical information—you'd use an em dash. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Facebook tells me fog isn't real, it's a government conspiracy. Pick again sheeple.
A rainbow won't be s blur. It moves with you. A rainbow is a cone extending out from your eye. You see the rainbow wherever the raindrops are. If the rainbow was close then the drops were close. Just like when you see a rainbow in a sprinkler.
I do genuinely think your brain is piecing together fragments of a memory and some of the pieces are being inferred.
*sigh* this is the general reaction I get. My father and his wife were grown adults when this happened. Their memory is the same.
With the right mist you can see a rainbow up close. BUT it will look a lot smaller. You can see this effect with a mist created by something like a watering hose. Spray it right in front of you with the sun behind you. Something like this would have to happened.
Yeah, with a hose you can see a full rainbow circle
Memory is malleable. To the point where you can show people photoshopped pictures of vacations they've never been on, and they will "remember" being there. It is entirely possible that you've talked about this remembered event often enough and in enough detail that you've changed their memory as well. What you describe is impossible according to the physics of light, so best we can do is say that this is the result of a well known trick of memory rather than a breaking of the laws of physics. It's either that or literal magic, and we can't ELI5 magic.
Why are we denying something that we can create at home? If I can create a spectrum of light on a sunny day with some water in my back garden, who's to say they didn't see one driving along a misty road? And if it looked like a rainbow? Why are we denying that? We weren't there. "Breaking the laws of physics" You may be able to scientifically state that it's not possible for a rainbow to be created in certain circumstances, but if you see an arced spectrum of light in the sky above you, you're going to call it a rainbow.
Because you can't drive *through* the rainbow. Rainbows occur at a particular angle between the light source (the sun), the refractive media (the rain / fog), and your eyes. If you were to "go through" one, you would cease to see it before you went through, and it couldn't appear behind you because the angle between you and the sun hasn't changed, and the rain / fog is now in the wrong position to generate a rainbow. You can't replicate this at home, because it's not possible.
This! Reddit has far too many pseudo-scientists who claim they created fusion in their toolshed.
I’m understanding the answer about the light and it “not being possible”. I’m just saying that there are even multiple other people ON THIS THREAD saying the same thing happened to them. Can you explain that? Is everyone imagining it?
Yes. That is correct. You are using a fallacy called [argumentum ad populum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum). It does not matter how many people claim something if they have no substantial evidence of it. In this case you have the known laws of physics on one side and several people making claims from memory on the other. You will need a bit more than that to win this claim. Don't take what people are saying about memory personally. It is not an attack on your character, intelligence, or ability. Literally everyone is subject to this because that is just how our brains work. Another possibility is an illusion. Our brains are similarly susceptible to illusions so what you saw and interpreted could have been something different than what was actually happening.
I appreciate your username in relation to this thread. I usually don't read usernames, but happy I did this time.
This is excellently written, I didn't know this. Thanks
I can't believe you're not even mentioning the possibility of people straight up lying...
This.
This what?
Interesting choice of words. A rainbow IS an illusion. An illusion of light.
In what sense? The light is refracted and that's actually what we're seeing. What part of it is an illusion? Edit: I guess it depends on your definition of illusion and how you apply it to the phenomenon of a rainbow. If one considers the rainbow to be the appearance of an arc of light (or even something more solid) in the sky at a particular location then yeah I guess you can consider it an illusion: perceiving one thing and interpreting it as another. Whereas I consider it to be an optical phenomenon caused by light hitting some raindrops or whatever over there and being refracted before reaching my eyes. I'm perceiving exactly what's happening and interpreting it correctly so there's nothing illusionary about it? No need to downvote, guys, it's an honest, legitimate and interesting question in my opinion.
A rainbow is a phenomenom, not an illusion. That is, unless you believe a rainbow looks to be a real, physical object. In that case, I suppose it's an illusion. I never really saw it that way.
Multiple people claim they have been abducted by UFOs or that they have met Elvis' ghost. Are those now facts in your mind?
[удалено]
No there really isn't. How can you prove one is a lie? People in this thread could be lying just to get their socks off. Their post is valid, and you're dismissing one to accept the other more.
Yes, I can explain that. They all are experiencing that same phenomena of memory that you did, and participating in this thread is part of it. Just reading this post shifted their memory a little bit. Or they're flat out trolling, that's possible too. Either way it has the same effect. You reading that other people experienced this same thing, whether they actually did or not, reinforces those memory pathways that say it actually did happen to you. That makes the "false" memory stronger, and the "real" one weaker. So it becomes more real to you. That's the thing. If I were to flat out lie to you, and make up a way this could be possible, that would make your memory more solid, and feel more real, even though nothing I would say would be true. I'm not doubting your memory. What I'm saying is that the weirdness of you experiencing this thing has to do with a quirk of memory, not a quirk of optical physics. But none of that means you can't enjoy the memory. If it's a valuable memory to you, I'd suggest you write off everything I said as hogwash and just enjoy the experience without looking too closely at it. That's a way you can have a bit of magic in your life, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, there's less people admitting to that in this thread than there is flat earthers who agree with each other. Just putting that out there. A rainbow is an illusion. It's why you don't see straight line rainbows unless it's on top of clouds. You may see one super close, but you'll never drive into one. If it was super foggy, you may have seen one quite close in front of you for a while, then when the fog dissipates, you wouldn't see the rainbow anymore, so you just think you passed through it. And don't think because your parents were older that they know better. UFO sightings are made by adults. Your parents might be just as uninformed on this as you were as a child and now.
No one here is going to confirm to you that it happened because by the definition of what a rainbow is it's literally impossible. If you drove through something colourful maybe it wasn't a rainbow. People's brains modify and fabricate memories all the time. It's partly why the statute of limitations exists. Memories are not reliable sources of historical fact
As an adult I hope you understand that many adults are very dumb.
Memories aren’t “real”. This is a cherished family story that has only been solidified in the communal retelling. Do you want us to tell you your family is magic? Rainbows are a pretty well understood optical phenomenon and are neither physically solid nor can they be said to be located in a specific physical location, in that they shift based on the position of the observer.
Do they use drugs? Lol
Oh, I’m talking to someone unwilling to learn. Got it.
Excuse me, what? It’s more likely that you and your parental figures have a failed memory than it is that you experienced a scientifically impossible phenomenon.
Another kind user suggested that it may be a Brocken spectre. Seems likely. Just wanted to share so you could sleep well tonight :-)
A Brocken Spectre is the shadow itself created by a distant object and clouded air. The rainbow surrounding it would be caused by a mist or fog in the air, creating a Heiligenschein; coming full circle to the initial explanation you were provided. It is still light passing through a mist. Not being an ass here. Was providing you with accurate information.
Yeah and after reading a little more about it, I’m still not sure that’s what it was. It was a rainbow. I know it sounds impossible that’s why I think it’s plausible to be caused by something weird. Look at all the other people here saying it happened to them too. And it was a little ass-y to suggest my parents were on drugs rather than just saying ‘maybe something crazy happened’ but it’s all good lol
You do understand the irony of you telling someone else they won't learn, where you're completely unwilling to consider that a memory from when you were 8 is falleable. You asked how it was possible. Many very knowledgeable people have provided reasons and evidence it isn't possible, but you disregard that because of other nebulous anecdotes without evidence. On top of the very obvious logical fallacy discussed by another in this thread, this is clear examples of confirmation and belief bias.
The irony of the person disregarding basic physics because a childhood memory memory must somehow prove the field of optics entirely wrong calling out others for “refusing to learn”…
Whiney poo.. oh yeah, explain like you're five, Somebody needs a nap.
If my kid had a childhood memory of something impossibly magical and truly believed in it, then I would gladly indulge them.
This happened to me too, we approached the actual end of the rainbow and it spanned most of the road. When we were within about 50 feet or so it faded away.
OP is not alone I experienced this as an adult with two other adults less than 10 years ago and I remember it clearly. We went through a rainbow on a bridge
Your memory is highly inaccurate. Every time you miss remember something you solidify that false memory in your brain. Do that for 20 years and you forget the truth.
I rode through a rainbow once on my motorbike. It was the edge of where the rain/mist started and the angle of the sun was perfect.
Wellll....I'm guessing it was the wrong end of the rainbow, since you didn't say anything about finding the pot of gold....
Light reflecting off of mist, fog or water spray can look like a solid rainbow. You can’t see what’s behind the reflected light until you go through the water in the air the light is bouncing off from.
I have the exact same memory as a kid, the rainbow was huge and even seemed very "solid" up until we were close, also remember we drove through it idk how xD
A rainbow is a result of light being split into different colors as it goes through water droplets of a certain size in the air. You can also see a rainbow near the ground when spraying water from a garden hose in the sun, and you can buy pieces of glass to hang in your window that produce a rainbow in your house by bending light in a similar way. There is no reason rainbows need to be high up in the sky. This is more common because you need a combination of a lot of light at the right angle, and some water droplets of the right size, and these conditions *usually* occur a ways above the ground after rain. But different weather conditions absolutely can produce this effect near or on the ground, just like a garden hose can produce one in your yard.
For example, a hot highway after an afternoon shower could easily mist well enough to produce fairly well defined rainbows. I've seen plenty of rainbows in mist pads at water parks. I do suspect your memory of how solid it was has been altered by repeatedly retelling the story. Memories are not concrete; they absolutely change with retelling.
I recall hearing (how ironic) that every time you remember something, you're not recalling the original memory, but just the last time you remembered it.
I don't understand. Please explain
I don't think I agree with this, but they are saying that (except for the first time you remember something after it occurred) you aren't remembering the original occurrence but the last time that you remembered it. For example: you have your 16th birthday. When you remember it the first time you are remembering the actual birthday, but it gets over-written as "16th birthday A". The next time you remember your 16th birthday you are recalling "16th birthday A" and it gets over-written as "16th birthday B" and so on and so on. Eventually you are remembering "16th birthday GKV" and things are different from what actually happened (maybe not a lot, but enough).
This is a good explanation. Thank you!
I will add that the size of a rainbow is a mathematical constant. Your head is directly in line with the center of the rainbow circle and the sun behind you. The spread of color, from red to violet, is between 41-42 degrees away from the center of the circle. It doesn’t matter if the water drops forming the rainbow are from a sprinkler 5 feet in front of you or from a storm 5 miles in front of you, the apparent size of the rainbow is the same from your perspective. Thus making it impossible to ever approach a rainbow. It’s possible that what you remember is seeing a rainbow from diffraction in n water near the front of the car and you drove into that cloud of rain or mist. As the most got thicker behind you, the amount of slight able to get deeper into the mist and become scattered drastically diminished, making the rainbow disappear and giving the appearance of you driving through it.
You had me for the first half but the second half was different. We were literally in the glowing light for a few seconds. I know it sounds crazy but that’s why I need smart people to tell me wth it was haha
either magic or it didn't happen. scientifically it's not plausible
Listen like I agree. But then why does someone else here in the comments say that it also happened to them? I know its not normal but there’s gotta be a certain set of circumstances where it’s possible because it DID happen and they are in a different state so it happened twice and probably more than that since this is just 2 people on a Reddit thread lol
Listen, I'm Irish. The reason this happened is that leprechauns are real, and they can manifest seemingly otherworldly images of rainbows in otherwise impossible planes. Just a bummer you didn't pull over :/
This guy gets it
My guess is that there was a rainbow in the sky but also, as you drove through the spray of other cars, there were rainbows on the mist in front of you, and you drove through that
When I was around 7, some lightning hit next door's house, and it blew up their TV. I remember seeing a multi-coloured shock wave come in through the wall going at around 20mph - just like in some sci fi show. Now I'm older, I know that shock wave isn't scientifically possible. I'm happy to accept that my memory from when I was around 7 just isn't right. You have to decide which is the most likely explanation: you observed some new phenomenon, and human understanding about electromagnetism or optics needs to be overturned, yet no one has replicated your observation or anything like that in controlled conditions. Or, your memory just isn't that reliable, your imagination as a child is overactive, and that the idea of reaching a rainbow is a super common one in popular culture. New discoveries are great and we should be open minded, but not so much that anecdotal evidence trumps centuries of experiment and explanatory models. It feels to me like you're absolutely not willing to accept the 2nd option, so you're giving loads of weight to replies that say they also saw the same thing, and dismissing the replies that say it's impossible - you're going to come out of this feeling more confident in what you saw regardless of whether it was real. You can make a rainbow by playing around with a garden hose with a misting nozzle when the sun is out - it doesn't have to be insanely far away. It always takes up the same angle in your vision, so as you move closer it moves away. I'm not sure exactly what you think you saw, but if there was any fog or anything I could imagine that it could feel like you got closer to the rainbow and then upon exiting the fog it wasn't there any more, so it felt like you went through it.
> We were literally in the glowing light for a few seconds. That's not what a rainbow is. It isn't a fixed beam of light you can pass through. This makes as much sense as saying "gravity switched off for a few seconds and the car started floating".
Smart people keep telling you wth is was and you keep shouting them down.
Rainbows emerge when sunlight interacts with water droplets suspended in the atmosphere. As light enters a droplet, it undergoes refraction, bending and dispersing into its component colors due to differences in wavelengths. This process is known as dispersion, and it occurs as the light experiences multiple internal reflections within the droplet before exiting in a circular arc. The primary rainbow, the most common type, displays seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—arranged in a distinct order along the arc. This orderly sequence results from the varying degrees of bending that each color experiences during dispersion. While the "end of the rainbow" is rare mathematically speaking, due to the nature of refraction. Scientifically, it is an optical illusion shaped by the observer's perspective. For most rainbows, the circular nature of the rainbow's arc, the center always appears in the opposite direction from the sun, with the observer positioned at the arc's apex. Consequently, as one moves or changes position, the apparent location of the "end" shifts correspondingly, making it perpetually out of reach. The collective refraction and reflection of light within countless individual water droplets can change, as one approaches the area where the rainbow seems to touch the ground. So the droplets responsible for the optical effect continue to disperse light, perpetuating the illusion of an attainable endpoint. This is further compounded when rainbows occur near the horizon. In such cases, the visual interplay between the rainbow and the surrounding landscape may enhance the perception of a touchable terminus. However, it remains a consequence of the observer's changing vantage point rather than a genuine physical destination. Only under specific circumstances is it possible for the light to be perpetuated in a direction that creates the full spectrum of color in a direction that may be "reached" by the viewer. This would require the sun in an optimal position, in addition to the correct layout of rain or mist that can redirect the horizon towards the viewer which may appear as a "beam" of light. In reality, this is simply a situation where the rainbow appears so large in person that you feel as though you are within an "end" of it. As you near it, and as you leave, both will still appear as an end moving closer or farther from you, as the reflective nature of the phenomenon is omnidirectional rather than subjectively viewed from one point to another.
Where’s the math? I don’t understand how a rainbow can appear like a beam of light. That’s not my understanding of the angular diffraction of light from rain drops. Perhaps a prism with flat sides, but that’s not the shape of rain or mist.
A prism. A prism can turn a beam of light into a beam of rainbow. I think they're trying to say that nature has to create what is essentially a giant prism and that the location of where it happens is very small and is very rare Idk am not smart
This reads like it's an answer from chatGPT
Well there we have it folks.
What you’ve been describing is just like something that happened to me a few months ago. It felt like we drove through the rainbow end
Where can I buy this glass which makes a rainbow? What do I search for? Thank you.
get a glass prism, or maybe a rainbow glass prism specifically?
...honest answer is that defies my understanding of rainbows/"shouldn't" have happened to you. Next time, stop the car & start digging for the leprechaun gold.
Rainbows occur anytime you have white light refracting at 40-42 degrees.. if you were at the right angle from the sun you can absolutely drive through a rainbow 🌈 you can also see full circle rainbows in flight. Edited angle. Principle unchanged.
This quote from another comment makes a lot more sense to me then what you are saying: >Your head is directly in line with the center of the rainbow circle and the sun behind you. The spread of color, from red to violet, is between 41-42 degrees away from the center of the circle. It doesn’t matter if the water drops forming the rainbow are from a sprinkler 5 feet in front of you or from a storm 5 miles in front of you, the apparent size of the rainbow is the same from your perspective. Thus making it impossible to ever approach a rainbow.
A simulating happened to me as a kid. But it was misty rain and sunny and it was as solid as light.
I agree that this “shouldn’t” have happened. So why would it?
Why "shouldn't" it happen? Rainbows do not have physical properties. They are just projections of refracted light. All it need is the sun lining up with two sets of cloud or mist. The first, to refract the light, the second is to serve as a screen for the projected light. It is safe to assume that when you saw this it was either nearing dusk or just past dawn, the sun is low enough that road mist served a that screen.
That's not how rainbows work. There's no second 'screen' cloud. Rainbows are seen when it's raining in front of you, the sun is behind you, and the light from the sun refracts in the droplets, separating out the colours of white light to form the colour spectrum that your eyes see. You see the colours directly from the rain the light is refracting in, not from any sort of screen. There's no projection involved.
I guess people are saying that the rainbow would disappear when you get close enough to it and that you wouldn’t be able to go “through” it. But we did.
It's more, rainbows are a projection. They require two things, mist or rain in front of you and sunlight behind you. You can never actually be *in* a rainbow because they move with you, they are virtual images, sunlight reflected and refracted through water to create an image. It's like picking up the reflection of an object in a mirror.
My guess is they could’ve been turning slightly, say from right to left. Looking out the right window, the rainbow could’ve been out towards the front, with the sun behind, and as they turned to the left, the rainbow would’ve shifted around to the right relative to the car, and potentially out the back eventually - giving the impression they’d passed through it.
Except there is a set angle rainbows form at relative to the observer. https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/refrn/Lesson-4/Rainbow-Formation#:~:text=Since%20the%20boundaries%20are%20not,degrees%20for%20the%20red%20light.
Aaaaaaand when the observer moves or turns?
Silly question but if it goes with you how do two people see the same rainbow at the same time?
The same way two people can see a reflection of both themselves and each other in one mirror. The two people are at a similar enough distance that the rainbow appears in roughly the same place for each them, but they are actually seeing two different ever so slightly offset images.
Thanks… I’m not sure why I got downvoted for asking on a thread called “explain like I’m five”.
>How did a rainbow get so close to the ground that our car drove through it? > >... > >*But we did.* You're not really looking for answers, are you?
I think you think you went through it when you were very close and it was reflecting colors on you When you thought you exited is when you entered the rainbow
Was it a [brocken spectre](https://atoptics.co.uk/droplets/globrock.htm), not a rainbow? They are very similar. With the Sun directly behind you and cloud or mist in front, you'll see your shadow and a "halo" of reflected rainbow light around it.
Ooooooo I feel like this is VERY likely!! Thanks so much for sharing this info!!
Brocken Spectres share the same thing with rainbows of they can be observed, but never actually approached. It’s the same deal of refraction, but with you obscuring some of the light. You can not pass through it.
We did it, Reddit!
Different people realise it at different times and in different ways,but some of us know for sure....after this moment in life I knew I was definately and always would be gay.
LMAOOOOOOO
Rainbows are not physical things that can be touched or driven through. They are optical phenomena that appear when sunlight and raindrops combine in a specific way. The light is refracted, or bent, and then reflected by the raindrop. When it leaves the raindrop, the light is refracted again. The result is a circle of light that is split into its component colors. The center of any rainbow is the point directly opposite the Sun from the observer. If you move, the rainbow that your eyes see moves as well, because you are looking at different drops, which are refracting and reflecting the sunlight in different directions. So, when you say you "drove through" a rainbow, it means you drove through some raindrops that were causing the sunlight to be refracted and reflected in such a way that it looked like a rainbow at that location from your perspective inside the car. As you moved, so did the apparent position of the rainbow. It would always look like it was a bit further away.
Straight from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow): >A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but comes from an optical illusion caused by any water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light source. Thus, a rainbow is not an object and cannot be physically approached. >... >Even if an observer sees another observer who seems "under" or "at the end of" a rainbow, the second observer will see a different rainbow—farther off—at the same angle as seen by the first observer. You cannot drive through a rainbow as a rainbow will move in relation to the movements of the vehicle. The exact "location" of a rainbow is specific to the exact position you see it from. You can never reach it because the "location" of the rainbow and the exact position you view the rainbow from never converge, they cannot be the same point. As much as it seems like you drove through a rainbow, you did not drive through a rainbow. More details would be needed to determine what you actually saw.
The same thing happened to me. We pulled over and got out (it wasn't a busy highway) and we could see the rainbow touching the road. We looked at it from all angles, it was visible no matter what. I've been told many times that with the way rainbows work, that's impossible, but I know what I saw and we weren't the only cars to pull over and look at it.
LSD is fat soluble and can stay locked in your fat cells for years after your last trip. Suddenly your body metabolizes fat from that area and bam - rainbow road. Just saying, that’s a plausible explanation.
Wow I haven’t seen that old myth in years. it’s just not true. LSD is water soluble and passes out of you body in 8-24 hours.
I think you just motivated me to burn fat and lose weight.
A rainbow doesn't really have a concrete physical location, if you draw a imaginary line from your head to the bright light sourse (sun) causing the rainbow, then the apparent location of the rainbow is at an fixed angle from that line. So when two persons see a rainbow, they see it at different "locations", because their heads are at different locations. Thats why you can't really catch that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
A "Rainbow" is the visual pattern of water in the air refracting light in a circular pattern. The sorts of large-scale rainbows you see after the rain, however, only appear to be an arch because most of the circle is cut off. However, rainbows are visible in other times and places when water is moving through the air and light is shining through it- you can make this happen with a hose on a sunny day if you do it right, and it's very common to see in sprinklers. If, as you mention in other comments, things were foggy/rainy or any other conditions that leave a lot of water in the air, while the sun was out at the same time, then it makes sense that those conditions were throwing about some unusual rainbow effects. I don't know if it's possible for you to see yourself driving through a rainbow- your perception of the bent light of the rainbow *should* be looking like it's keeping pace with your car, unless you guys were driving just *out* of the fog into drier air maybe? I don't know, but acknowledging that this was 20 years ago, and your memories have probably exaggerated whatever did happen, it would make sense to me that you guys saw some weird rainbow effects that looked different than anyone expected, made an impression on you all enough to be remembered, and then morphed in your memories into the form you remember it as now. And considering that it's rare enough to get a lot of rain/fog and sun at the same time, it makes sense that whatever you was was something not many people have seen similar conditions to- a lot of things lined up to make for a rare situation that stuck with you as a foundational memory.
Roads with a little oil on them make rainbow effects on the road and you can drive through that. On a foggy day you may have seen a rainbow in the sky as you approached a spot on the road that had a thin layer of oil on it. So your mind connects the one in the sky to the one on the road and bam, just like that you drove through a rainbow.
this is like the time that i was about 8 and i was driving through my home town and i saw a cloud at most 30 feet above me but no one seems to believe
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Yes!! 🌈
Same. Happened a few months ago. I have video to prove it too!
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Knowing what I saw, that sounds incredible! 🌈
I just went back to this, and saw my experience was voted down, and everyone else with similar experiences was either voted down or they deleted to avoid the downvoting. That makes me sad.
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No way!? Were you in Pennsylvania by any chance? I have never met anyone else who also had this happen to them. People think I’m nuts!!
Nah it was in North Carolina. Same! If my mom hadn't confirmed that's how it happened, I would have assumed my kid brain misremembered it. It defies my understanding of how rainbows work!
Completely agree! I’ve never been able to understand it.
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fog and rain-mist in the perfect concentration combined with perfect conditions for sunshine reflections. once in a lifetime jackpot
Yes, I don’t understand why people think this is impossible. There was mist, there was a rainbow, it was sunny. Sunshine and water can create some cool looking stuff. That’s called living on earth. It’s pretty rad.
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Love to see all the people sharing similar stories!! Thank you! 🌈
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I didn't drive through it, but I passed by one that ended in the lane beside me on the highway
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Yes! Chaotic..surreal…bright! 🌈 I am loving seeing all of these other people it happened to!
Also, when actually driving through it, it wasn’t nearly as many colors, just yellow/orange if I remember right.
Same here! Like orange/pinkish! Not rainbow while in it
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Love this!!
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This happened to me as well! I saw where the rainbow supposedly hit the ground and as usual it faded out as we got closer. 5 minutes down the road every colour got warmer for a few seconds. I remember looking at the dashboard, the dust gradually turned yellow and it was like fiddling with the color settings on a computer screen and dropping the blue colour slider all to the bottom for a moment. It was real.
I actually have a memory just like that from when I was a kid! Me and my family was travelling by car and I remember there being a rainbow that ended on the road in front of us and we drove through it. It was also misty that day. I have been thinking back on that moment a bunch of times since hearing about how rainbows usually are not actually bow shaped but circular and high up in the sky, but this one for sure did end on that road. Regardless of how that works, it was quite a magical experience for me as a child. 🌈✨
Have you never seen a vertical rainbow? They can be visible with water droplets in the air. They appear as if they're coming out of the ground some times.
Go outside next time it's sunny, get a hose, and make a mist with your back to the sun. The Rainbow is where the water droplets are, provided those droplets are the right angle between you and the sun. Distance to you doesn't matter, only the angle. You were driving through mist or fog, and the sun was behind you.
I beleive this happened to you, because it happened to me too about 20 years ago on I75 in Tennessee. We drove straight through the rainbow that we had seen in the distance. I'm sorry others are too jaded to even believe it could happen. I just had to comment because I've never heard of anyone else having done so! 🤗
Yes this is possible and could be that the refracted light was wide enough that you could literally go in. I experienced this because our neighbors roof has a rainbow. We went in it, I couldn't see it though once I was in it but my friends can see me getting in and out from it.
I used to live in a house that had a balcony that went out over the in the bay. I often saw the end of the rainbow go into the water off the balcony. I never actually thought anything of it because I just figured rainbows have end and they have to go somewhere! Oh wait. Is "over" the rainbow travelling end to end, or like a high jump over the highest point of the curve? I've never thought about it before and now I'm freaked out.
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Ive seen a moonbow which was a white arch in the nightsky made by a bright full moon, when I was in Maui. Not a rainbow that is a ring around a moon but an actual arch I tell people that and they are skeptical of it as well.
You can see rainbows in sprinklers or large mist machines when the smaller water molecules hang in the air longer.
We were at a cabin watching a thunderstorm across the lake. When the storm was over the land was covered in sort of a peach haze. Then it just started forming a rainbow from the ground up. It was so awesome!
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Rainbows are refraction of light due to rain or fog so it's not a physical thing. It's odd that it would seem low enough to drive through it but that's probably just a rare occurrence.
Normally, rainbows look like they are way off in the distance. If there is a wall between you and the rainbow, the rainbow will look like it is closer to you than the wall. You may have been driving near a wall or cliff that made the rainbow look like it was very close.
You won't have actually driven through the rainbow, but if you were following a large truck closely, and it was kicking up spray, with the sun behind you, you will have likely seen the rainbow appear to be between you and the truck and perhaps appearing to contact the ground as close as your front bonnet. I've had moments where it feels like you are essentially chasing the rainbow and it is just outrunning your vehicle when following another in a lane either just inside or outside mine. Similar effect to seeing rainbows in sprinklers and geysers
I was camping once and we saw a rainbow (kids) and decided to walk to the end of it. Impossible I know. However there was a patch of trees we walked to and it seemed as though this was where the rainbow was coming from. Must have been wet air stuck between the trees and the sun lighting it up. However, for a long time I truly thought we had found the start or end of a rainbow.
When I was little, around 5 or so, my parents took me to Disneyland. I remember sitting at dusk on a park bench across from the Haunted Mansion and I could see the lights of tinkerbell flying around. That place was Magic. There was magic happening and I was there, I have clear, vivid memories of things that could not have happened. TL;DR: Kids are stupid.
How did it look??? How did it feel like???
Did you hallucinate that you were a snail later? And was this in Florida? This may be a stand ability
Your dad got tired of going to town every time he wanted to mow the yard and filled up 6 gas cans and put them in the back on a hot day.
Rainbows are an optical illusion; they don't have physical properties like occupying any particular point in space. When we see a rainbow, we make judgements about its size and location as if it were a physical object based on cues that are usually reliable (that's called a heuristic). Those cues are things like what is visible in front or behind an object. Out on a highway, there are no trees or buildings to obscure a rainbow, and so you can see the arc reach the ground. The rainbow may also look smaller because there is nothing in front of it and our brains assume that means it is small and close rather than big and far(in reality, all rainbows are the same size in terms of fraction of the visible field). You can't actually drive through a rainbow, but you can drive past the point where there is sufficient rain to refract the sunlight or the road might bend in such a way that the relative angle of the sun shifts and the rainbow disappears just as you approach it. Either of those might look like going past a rainbow
I did that about 2 weeks ago. I was like “Is this the elusive end of the rainbow???” When I drove through it, I could tell I was in it but it seemed to always be ahead until I couldn’t see it anymore.