Impending Solar Storm Keeping Freemasons From Attending Lodge

 Niagara Falls, NY -- While scientists and technical crews are bracing for a potential solar flare to hit the planet this week, Masonic Lodges around North America and even Canada have reported that member attendance is at an all time low. 

"It's crazy. I mean, we usually at least have enough guys to open, but only two of us showed tonight.," said WB Nick Tesla from Aurora Lodge. "And Charlie Sprockets, from Ionic Lodge over in Shelbyville called me to say that not even the master showed up. Can you believe that?"

WB Tom Steinmetz from Corona Lodge could believe it. "We had a degree scheduled, and no less than fourteen guys called in at the last minute to say that they couldn't make it tonight," he told The Past Bastard. "I 've heard the same thing has been happening all week to other lodges, but nobody seems to know why."

It seemed that the impending internet outages made quite a few brothers hesitate to attend lodge this week. The Past Bastard has received reports of new recruits and even higher ranking officers (in fact, mostly higher ranking officers) who decided to stay home if they were faced with lack of internet access. 

The Past Bastard contacted RW Jim Westinghouse, WB Graham Faraday, and WB Ed Franklin, who all asked to remain anonymous. All had reported missing, or planning to miss their lodge meetings this week. 

"I really was going to go to that meeting tonight, but I heard that the sun did this thing, like a gas ball or something, and that it was headed toward Earth," one anonymous person told The Past Bastard. "Not that I'm afraid of sun gas, but they said that it was going to shut down the internet. I mean, how would I check my email during the meeting?"

Several explosive events have occurred on the Sun this week, with each sending different kinds of Coronal Mass Ejections towards Earth. In the last 48 hours, the aurora has been spotted in southern Alaska and across New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine

The National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is warning that a G2 class Geomagnetic Storm could impact Earth on Thursday, perhaps impacting electrical grids and transformers, interfering with satellites, disrupting radio communications, and sending the Northern Lights much more south than usual.

Another anonymous user also told The Past Bastard that he was concerned about the solar flare. "I honestly didn't want to be sitting there at a lodge meeting with nothing to do," he said.