Sparks Above and Below: One Surreal, Dreamlike Oregon Coast Eve

Published 08/30/25 at 6:55 a.m.
By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

On one night in early August, quite a few years ago, Oregon's northern coast became a dreamlike, surreal-scape, more like an alien world than our familiar shores. Nothing could be have been more entrancing and extraordinary. Right time. Right place. And more. (Above: the hidden spot in southern Cannon Beach where this happened)

Things that glow on the sand, little fires in the sky and an unbelievably different kind of weather vibe: it all came together on one tract of beach to create something absolutely unforgettable.

Yet it's something you could experience as well. You just have to be willing to give a chance. You have to be willing to try venturing out here at night, which many are dismissive of right off the bat.

Let's put it this way: it was a summer awhile back, one that was unusually warm. And it was way back when I was just discovering this glowing sand phenomenon.

Earlier in the day I'd been chatting with friends in Wheeler, and they told me Nehalem Bay had been doing that "glowing thing" recently. This meant that, apparently unbeknownst to me, we had been hit with the right conditions for glowing phytoplankton to appear on the beaches and in the bay waters in great abundance.

Sights above Manzanita

Whoa.... I flipped out over this possibility.

I zipped northward with great anticipation, waiting for night to fall completely. By the time I reached Cannon Beach, it was finally dark. I pulled into a neighborhood on the southern end I wasn't familiar with, walked onto the nearly pitch black beach, and discovered a sizable basalt structure looming there in the dark, looking like a mini version of famed Haystack Rock. Not being well acquainted with this beach (at the time) and this rocky behemoth, I was a little unnerved - even a tiny bit spooked - in the dark, but felt compelled to walk towards it. Good thing.

There was a pool of water around it, and a much larger patch of wet sand surrounding it. This patch was where I saw the glowing phytoplankton again: this time much clearer, brighter than the first time I'd seen it a decade before. And many more of them. They erupted like sparks - or like tiny galaxies bursting into a brief existence - from beneath my feet, causing me to shriek in a childlike glee. I couldn't contain myself.

Glowing phytoplankton near Gold Beach caught by Solution 7 Media

To add to the wild and surreal beauty of this night, there was a warm wind blowing from the south - as if I was in California. This enveloping breeze was about ten degrees warmer, completely changing the feel of the place. It completely enveloped me and took me by surprise. I had never experienced that here before.

Then I noticed sparks of light in the night sky as well. I had forgotten: this was the height of August's Perseid meteor showers (something I'd written about in this publication many times before). Streaks of light flashed briefly and faintly in some spots, at times in great numbers in a short time, almost staccato fashion. But mostly, a giant red fireball would occasionally rip through the black, leaving a brief trail, looking a little like someone had shot a flare.

Thanks to the clearer skies of summer, these meteor showers appear distinctly and vibrantly.

It immediately hit me: sparks above and below. Or like that literary phrase: on Earth as it is in Heaven.

This was indeed like an alien world. A warm wind wafting up the beach from the south, flowing around this weird, unfamiliar, black, basalt structure at the tide line; then those sparks coming from both the sand and the sky. Forget Lewis & Clark and their end of the trail. I was Spock or Kirk, and I felt like I'd gone where no man had gone before just by visiting Cannon Beach on this night.

The glow is created by tiny phytoplankton called dinoflagellates, which are bioluminescent. You can see how and why they do this here. Bioluminescent Phytoplankton: What Makes Glowing Sand On Oregon Coast, Washington

Over the years of running Oregon Coast Beach Connection, I've encountered it a lot. In fact, I almost never drive home during the day and only at night, just so I can check for it before I leave. Yet I've never encountered it with these other two aspects in place.

Someone else had the amazing luck to photograph it in Cannon Beach recently with both the meteors and the glow (but sans the ethereal warm wind was happening).

To this day, finding all three is still my Holy Grail.

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