Nation & World News

Statue of Liberty temporarily goes dark, sparking speculation on social media

By Michelle Ewing
March 8, 2017
Lady Liberty's temporary – and apparently unintentional – strike has ended.

According to the New York Post, the Statue of Liberty went mostly dark – except for its crown and torch – about 10 p.m. Tuesday, sparking speculation that the lights were cut in solidarity with Wednesday's Day Without a Woman protest or as a statement against President Donald Trump's immigration executive order.

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The national monument lit back up about 11:30 p.m., the Post reported.

A National Park Service representative issued the following statement:

"A portion of the lighting system that illuminates the Statue of Liberty experienced a temporary, unplanned outage tonight," spokesman Jerry Willis said, according to WCBS.

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"The outage was most likely due to work related to an ongoing project to activate a new emergency backup generator that is part of our last remaining Hurricane Sandy recovery projects."  
But some people weren't buying it.
The Park Service should be able to find out more about what caused the incident Wednesday morning, Willis said.

Read more here or here.

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Michelle Ewing

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