The moon has been an object of worship, veneration, and intrigue among ancient civilizations. Because the menstrual and lunar cycles are similar in length, an ancient belief was that the moon controlled women's menstruation and could determine when women could become pregnant. Ancient Assyrian astrological texts give advice regarding when women are most fertile, according to the different phases of the moon, and moon deities, such as the Chinese goddess Chang'e, and the Inca goddess Quilla, were believed to control fertility and reproduction.
The moon has been shrouded in myths and legends for thousands of years.
Ancient healers believed in a strong connection between mania and the moon. The Greek Hippocrates (460-370 BC) wrote "one who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is because the person is being visited by the goddess of the moon." Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE), maintained that full moons had a particular influence upon our brains, being the 'moistest' organ, resulting in more crime and violence. Indeed, the words 'lunacy' and 'lunatic' come from the Roman goddess of the moon Luna, who was said to ride her silver chariot across the dark sky each night. The moon's waxing and waning have also made it a symbol of both birth/creation and death/destruction. Perhaps the greatest myth involving full moon is the ever-popular werewolf, a mythological human with the ability to shape-shift into a wolf-like creature during a full moon.
In oday's North American society, the older definition for the term Blue Moon has been traced back to the Maine Farmer's Almanac. It explained that the moon usually comes full 12 times in a year, three times for each season. Occasionally there will come a year when there are 13 full moons during a year, not the usual 12. And that extra full moon also meant that one of the four seasons would contain four moons instead of the usual three.
When the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded in 1883, its dust turned sunsets green and the moon blue all around the world for two years. So when a particular season had four moons, the third was dubbed a Blue Moon, so that the other full moons could occur at the proper times relative to the solstices and equinoxes. Then the definition 'a Blue Moon is the 2nd full moon in a single month' came from a misinterpretation of the original definition.
In 1927, the Indian monsoons arrived late and the extra-long dry season blew up enough dust for a blue moon.
On September 23, 1950, several low-lying marsh fires that had been smoldering for several years in Alberta, Canada, suddenly blew up into major -and very smoky- fires. Winds carried the smoke East-ward and South-ward with unusual speed, and the conditions of the fire produced large quantities of oily droplets of just the right size to scatter red and yellow light. Wherever the smoke cleared enough so that the sun was visible, it was lavender or blue. Ontario, and much of the East coast of United States were affected by the following day, and two days later, observers of the phenomenon reported an Indigo sun in smoke-dimmed skies, followed by an equally blue moon that specific evening. The effect was caused by smoke dust particles thrown into the atmosphere due to the fires.
In 1983, people saw blue moons after the eruption of El Chinchon volcano in Mexico, and there are reports of blue moons caused by Mount St. Helens in 1980 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.
So, in today's society, the key to a blue moon is having lots of particles slightly wider than a wavelength of red light (0.7 micrometer) -and no other sizes present. It is rare, but volcanoes sometimes produce such clouds, as do forest fires. Also ash and dust clouds thrown into the atmosphere by fires and storms usually contain a mixture of particles with a wide range of sizes (smallest 1 micro-meter), and they tend to scatter blue light. This kind of cloud makes the moon turn red; thus red moons are far more common than blue moons.
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