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I’m curious. I’ve heard these stories before about the lights from the temple guiding pilots in the night so that they can properly align themselves for landing at a nearby airport. When the lights aren’t there, the pilots complain and the air traffic control calls the temple wondering why the lights are out.
The latest I heard today was about the Los Angeles temple, and about how one night there was a power failure such that the angel Moroni wasn’t lit. The temple received a call from the LAX airport tower control asking why the light was out. They were told that pilots use the light and Moroni as a beacon to guide them in their landing. The temple workers climbed to the top of the temple and lit the angel with a generator.
I’ve heard this story told now about three different temples – the Las Vegas, the Los Angeles, and the Oakland temple. Each time the details are slightly different, but the substance is the same. In some of the versions it is the entire temple which is unlit; in some it is just the angel Moroni.
I was wondering if anyone knows where this story came from, and if any of these are true. I did some quick searches on LDS.org, but didn’t find anything.
DearScriptures.com
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Welcome to the wonderful world of LDS folklore! Having worked in the BYU folklore archives, I can tell you that this story has been told numerous times about various temples. I’ve read the documented items collected by students and staff. Does this mean it’s not true? Not necessarily. Somewhere back along the telephone line, it’s possible that this actually happened. Because members of the Church tend to be fans of “faith-promoting rumors”, stories like this one get passed around and it develops variants (different temples, etc.). To give these stories the most impact, people might change the particulars of the story. For instance, they might change the location of the temple to their hometown, or, in the case of this particular variant, to a location where the Church is currently dealing with political and social strife. My bet is that is will be almost impossible to find the original source of this story. You’d have to hear it from the person who spoke on the phone themselves with the airport traffic control people. And that’s the interesting thing about folklore. Most people won’t care if you can’t find the “true” version. It’s a compelling story with a nice nod to the notion of the temple as a beacon of truth (alluding more generally to Christ as the ultimate Beacon) and so it will continue to be told.
I’ve heard similar variants about the Oakland Temple serving as a navigational aid to mariners on San Francisco Bay. I doubt that one’s true–the Temple doesn’t show up on any of the region’s navigational charts, and is actually relatively inconspicuous from the harbor.
The geography in Las Vegas is totally wrong for a pilot to use the temple to line up with the airport from any conceivable approach, even ignoring all the other much brighter and very distinctive light-landmarks. I suspect the same is true of LA and Oakland. It has all the earmarks of a hokey urban legend anyway.
I’ve heard this story quite a bit about the Oakland Temple before, but its been about ships at sea using it as a beacon when the fog is real bad.
A nice story, but I’m with Ardis. Sounds like a faith-promoting rumor.
The Mesa temple is not in the flight path for Phoenix Sky Harbor.
urban legends.
The only approach into Las Vegas that even comes close to anywhere in the slightest vicinity of the temple is the “LUXOR 2″ approach (http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0812/00662LUXOR.PDF) and even that is well northeast of the temple.
A pilot would use temple lights to guide them in the sense they would use any other landmark – there is no spiritual significance to which landmarks pilots use for navigation.
This is a legend. As an airline pilot I can definitely say that temple are not used for navigation. And as stated by other posters, none of the temples mentioned are even close to near the airports they are alleged to have affected.
Same story is told of the London Temple, which is on the direct flightpath of London Gatwick.
Not sure if this is what you are after, but Elder Kenneth Johnson at the BYUH Devotional, September 23, 2004, mentioned about the London Temple being on the flight path for Gatwick Airport.
“In 1992, following the remodeling and refurbishment of the London Temple, there was intense media interest in the impact of the closure and re-opening on the local community. The Temple is located on the flight path to London’s Gatwick Airport and one of the reporters took the initiative to interview some airline pilots who regularly navigated this route. It was remarkable to read their responses. The light on the pinnacle of the spire had not been illuminated for over two years. They had missed this beacon as it provided them with a landmark that could be referred to with certainty on the planes final descent to the runway. Just as the light on the spire of the Temple helped chart the course for temporal travelers, so Temple covenants provide a light by which we can chart our course in the quest for exaltation. ”
http://w2.byuh.edu/devotionals/data/View.php?ArticleID=145
Temple lights would not be used for a commercial airliner, bizjet or small plane making an instrument approach except possibly as reference, but it could be very useful to small plane pilots flying only by visual rules at night. When it is dark you loose your ground reference making it more difficult to navigate. Local landmarks are often discussed by radio.
I found this article that briefly mentions pilots needing the lights on the Oakland Temple to be able to land. Don’t know how accurate it is or if it’s verifiable, but it might be worth looking at.
http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/51040/Oaklands-Temple-Hill–A-beacon-for-members.html
Here is a mention for the Boise Temple filling the role of navigation aide.
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Boise_Idaho_Temple
I have read that the Jordan River Temple is a marker on landing pattern maps for the SLC airport.
Thank you all for your comments. It appears there might be some truth to this story, at least in the case of the Oakland and London temples, and maybe some others. Interesting. I suppose any landmark that is well-lit at night might be used as a landmark for pilots to reference.
“I have read that the Jordan River Temple is a marker on landing pattern maps for the SLC airport.”
I checked all the approach routes and runway maps for SLC at airnav.com and it is not listed there.
It is listed as a landmark on the TAC map, but it is listed as a landmark like Hogle Zoo, KSL towers, and U of U events center are listed – in other words, nothing special.
At the end of our Sunday School class today, our teacher — a man who should know better, for crying out loud, if for no other reason than his position with the church itself, apart from his Sunday callings — told us he wanted to share something very special with us. “Last Tuesday evening, the recorder at the Los Angeles Temple got a call from LA International Airport …” At that point I just about lost it, but made do by crumping the class handout — I can’t trust anything the teacher hands out, after some of the stuff, like this, that he dishes out.
According to him, not only can airplanes not land in Los Angeles without the aid of the Angel Moroni (which was his “gospel point” — “the world is still looking to the Angel Moroni for guidance”), but also that “ships at sea cannot find the entrance to the harbor at Los Angeles” without the landmark of the temple.
I have to figure out a way to approach him about this and the other urban legends he so willingly and constantly propagates without his dismissing me as a little girl who needs to rely more on the priesthood, the way he usually dismisses me.
Elder Cordoba is the recorder at the Los Angelos temple and he stated this at our Saratoga stake conference (San Jose, CA) that the airport did indeed call him….and workers did go and light it up with a generator.
And as far as SanFrancisco goes- they delay flights all the time because of weather- I wouldn’t be surprised if the temple light is useful in some way.
If you know what you’re looking for you can see the London temple on certain approaches into London’s Gatwick. I always look for it and am pleased to see it when flying into Gatwick.
They’re putting a new angel Moroni on the London temple sometime this week — it might even be today. We’ll see what the media says about that.
Bryce, speaking of temples and shining lights — not sure if you picked up on the recent article in November’s National Geographic that used the Bountiful temple as a prime example of . . . light pollution. Looks like not everyone thinks that having brightly lit temples is such a “bright” idea.
Yep, the London temple got a new angel Moroni yesterday. May it guide future pilots for generations to come.
I just read the Church News article that Connie linked to above. It’s an article on the Oakland temple, with stories from an old-timer from the area. The old-timer said that many years ago, air traffic control once frantically called asking the temple to turn its lights back on. But to me, this sounds like the Church News is merely reporting on someone telling an urban legend.
There is a similar discussion going on over in the Snopes forums:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=832552
In the mid fifties when I was nine or ten years old, living in S. California, I heard the story about our newest Los Angeles temple being an aid to Ships at sea. This story is quite plausible considering the fog and low visibility of the coast. However, the beacon to help aircraft land at LAX is questionable.
My mother Gunnel worked at the Oakland temple from 1974 to 1986. During the energy crunch of 1977-78 a decsision was made to turn the lights off at the Oakland temple at night to conserve energy, (just like during droughts the water in the fountains was turned off to avoid the perception of wasting water). From what my mother related fhe Oakland Port Authority which oversees the airport and port of Oakland which is the 3rd busiest port on the west coast, contacted the temple pesidency asking if the lights were turned off because the church could not pay the power bills and offered to pay to keep the lights on at night because airline pilots and ship pilots used the temple on the hill as a becon and a navigation point.
Different locations and building codes sometimes require tall structures to have a light on top for a safety measure at night. It may depend on location and nearby structures. The Community of Christ temple in Independence, MO has a light that blinks and there isn’t any taller buildings nearby.
Interesting that the Bountiful Temple was singled out by National Geographic highlighting light pollution. One of my first posts – over a year ago (http://greenmormonarchitect.blogspot.com/2008/01/light-to-world.html) used the Bountiful Temple as an example of light pollution. Too random to be a coincidence I think…I finally saw a copy of the magazine today and they had a full two-page spread of the temple in the print edition only – not online. In fact there were a surprisingly high number of Utah images and references in the article.
I have been on several night flights into both San Francisco and Oakland where the pilot came on the overhead speakers and pointed out the lights of the Oakland Temple. I don’t know if they use it to navigate, but some do make note of it being a landmark.
Love your sight! Thanks! We have a question for which we’ve been unable to find an answer; perhaps you’ll help? Which temples remain lit 24 hours? Thanks!
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