On the night of Tuesday the 7th of October, citizens of the western United States and Eastern Asia were treated to a rare sight: A total lunar eclipse, or a ‘blood moon’ to quote the dramatic and increasingly popular term, which is based on the red colour of the moon around the time of an eclipse.
What is even more dramatic is that October’s eclipse forms part of a tetrad of lunar eclipses, or four consecutive total lunar eclipses, each six months apart with no partial eclipses in between.
The blood moon is both remarkable and important in two very different and even opposing fields. The tetrad excites the fields of science and religious prophesy in equal measure. In science the rarity of this spectacular sequence of events, dictated by the differing orbits of the sun, earth and moon, is what makes them so interesting. The frequency of lunar tetrads varies massively so, while there will be eight of them in the 21st century, the 16th 17th and 18th centuries had none at all. The science behind the red colour relates to the way the earths atmosphere bends and warps light, which then hits the moon and colours it red.
According to prophesy, the blood red colour has a much darker meaning. The book of Joel 2:31 states that. The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. Although the lunar tetrad has happened many times since the book was written, the fact that this one coincides with the Jewish festivals of Passover and Tabernacles has been picked up by some people, including John Hagee, author of Four Blood Moons: Something is about to change, as a sign.