I spent last weekend visiting friends in Marion, Massachusetts, a picturesque little town cut out of the mossy pine forests on the shores of Buzzards Bay, from which Cape Cod stretches out. It rained a lot, but Sunday evening was clear and breezy enough to blow the mosquitoes away, so we walked out to the water to watch the sun set. After a couple minutes of looking west, though, we turned our heads to the north and gasped and said "Whoa!" just like a certain resident of Yosemite, California I'm sure you're well familiar with by now. Because there was a rainbow in the sky. And not just a single rainbow, yes, it was a double one.

I took that picture as proof.

It increased in brightness as we watched, and eventually stretched full-on across the horizon. The upper band was not as vivid, just like in the famous YouTube video. But still, I felt lucky for sure. My kid had never seen even a single rainbow before, and here we were, able to show him this extra special specimen. Also, I was able to tell the friends we were visiting about this month's big internet meme (they were previously unaware, living, as they do, in Marion) and the widespread search for meaning that it has engendered. I had done some work in the field of rainbows earlier this year-rainbow bridges to be specific-and when I first saw the video, I did some additional research into symbology and discovered, at the website for the Osho Energy Transformation Institute, that

"The double rainbow is the symbol of transformation.
In the first rainbow we see red is at the top and
violet at the bottom.
This represents the material world.
We are a rainbow, but the red belongs at the feet and
the first chakra area and the violet at the head.
So when we see the red at the top and the violet at
the bottom, it is as if we are seeing a person upside
down or descending from heaven diving down to the
earth. In the upper second rainbow,
and remember it is not such a common sight,
the colours are the right way up,
this symbolizes the journey back to heaven,
the ascent of the kundalini,
the journey of transformation, the spiritual world."

"Transformation." So, seeing a double rainbow means you're entering a process of transformation? That's kind of vague, isn't it? When are we not entering a process of transformation? I checked with the science geeks over at Discovery, who were much more specific. Too specific, actually.

They explained that when the sun is at a low angle to the horizon it sends light through raindrops in the distance, which act as little prisms, refracting the light into its component colors, blah blah blah and

"As soon as the sunlight is reflected out on the first reflection, it escapes at an angle of 40 to 42 degrees. But the sunlight hasn't finished there. There's another reflection. And this reflection sends the sunlight out at an angle of around 50 to 53 degrees. So you can see these two very distinct rainbows. You have the primary rainbow, very, very bright. That's the first reflection, and you have a secondary rainbow which is ten degrees farther out, and a larger rainbow, coming out at about 50 to 53 degrees."

Clearly, this isn't really a question science is equipped to answer.

Having had such recent personal experience with the power of double-rainbow rays, I meditated on the notion myself. Double rainbows everywhere! It certainly seems like a sign. There must be a message. But what could it be? What does it mean when you see a double rainbow? Here are some ideas:

1) You are a telepathic biopsychic electromagnetic battery. You are building a bridge over which the star people, our ancestors, will come across from another dimension. That's kind of the most obvious meaning.

2) Reminder: Walk more lightly on the earth.

3) You're either drunk, or need a new prescription for your glasses. And there's really only one rainbow.

4) Thor will be even better than Iron Man and Iron Man 2. And The Avengers will be even better than that! (This very unlikely, I think. Unless they recast the new movies so that Robert Downey Jr. plays Thor and also all the other Avengers.)

5) It means you're gay. Like, double-strength gay.

6) It means you're not gay. Because the two rainbows cancel each other out.

7) Ronnie James Dio is riding into heaven on a unicorn.

8) Go ahead and have that second scoop. And get extra sprinkles. You deserve it.

9) You're looking at Mork's chest.

10) You're looking at a double rainbow.