For the past year people in Kitimat have called the LNG Canada flare “the eye of Sauron” after how it was depicted in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie The Two Towers

On May 31, 2026, I woke up at 3:34 am in time to catch the May blue “micro” full moon right over the flare as it reached a height of about 60 metres.

In the world today I have to say there is no AI manipulation of the images, just different exposure levels. So the “Eye of Sauron” photo was exposed to capture the moon. Others were exposed to balance the moon and the flare and to capture the landscape. It was so bright from the combination of the full moon and the flare that I was able to photograph my own shadow at 3:43 am. The final shot shows the moon about to set.

According to the Associated Press
A blue moon occurs every two to three years when a second full moon squeezes into a single month. May 1 saw this month’s first full moon.

Since the moon’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle, the upcoming full moon will be farther from Earth than usual at a distance of 252,360 miles (406,135 kilometers), making it seem a bit smaller and dimmer. It’s the opposite of a supermoon when a full moon comes closer to us than normal. The most recent supermoon, for instance, was just 225,130 miles (362,312 kilometers) away.

In Volume Two of Lord of the Rings the Eye is described

The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.

LNG Canada advised on May 29 that a planned flaring event will begin May 30th and continue until June 2nd, resulting in intermittent flaring with flare heights of approximately 30 – 60 metres. We anticipate increased noise and visible emissions during this period.