![usa_night](http://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/usa_night_custom-296c3853d07e29518fd377e20cd694ba86d39653-s4.jpg?w=470)
NASA
If you look at the NASA satellite photo above, you can pick out, in the generally dark western plains, a weird clump of lights up near the Canadian border.
Those are the fracking fields of the Bakken oil boom.
Here’s a close up:
![bakken_vir_2012317](http://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/bakken_vir_2012317_wide-e31860b4065170ace4bdbdcb0f3297deaa49f8ae-s4.jpg?w=470)
NASA
NPR’s Robert Krulwich points out that sometimes these lights are “almost as bright as the Aurora Borealis.” What a handy signal to alien races that they should have nothing to do with us.
![](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/donkey-down.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=950)