Wish I’d had a camera at the time but a cartoon will have to suffice, representing two actual incomplete rainbows that stop in midair where they <del>cross</del> **meet**, lit only by a setting sun. **Embarrassing update:**   Now I _really_ wish this were an actual image.   Just realized that the rainbows might have ended at slightly different places, muddled by their overlap. The larger arch probably ended a little to left (and up) from where the smaller arch ended. **A revised picture is in the works.** <img src="https://i.sstatic.net/PdlTn.png"> This seemed so paradoxical, I honestly wondered if it was a dream. After all, on a normal [rainbow with two arches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Full_featured_double_rainbow_at_Savonlinna_1000px.jpg), the arcs do not touch and the larger one is very much fainter with a reversed spectrum. The arches schematized here were indeed accompanied by typically-faint concentric larger arcs that also stopped abruptly where they <del>crossed</del> **met**, exactly above the main <del>crossing</del> **meeting** point. Being awake, as it turned out, I discovered the simple explanation for this, related to an often-subtle and less dramatic everyday phenomenon that is readily understandable in nonscientific terms. I had enough information at the time to solve this like a puzzle, though, and now you do too. <sup><sup></sup></sup>       **What was that simple explanation for this odd pair of rainbows?** <sup><sup></sup></sup> **Notes.** The smaller arch is _slightly_ brighter. Only air was between the point of view and these rainbows. The rainbows were not as thick as depicted and had further characteristic features that scientific photography would reveal to extend a vertical pattern of similar crossing points. Safe to guess that this effect was not observed by humans more than a century or two ago, although tiny animals may have experienced it over the course of eons. Some details of the real-life story have been altered in an attempt to stymie internet searches.