I thought this was interesting.

[Joe Tall]

US blackout

http://john.hoke.org/images/us_overflight.php

[Oski]

So is this: blackout hoax (http://www.snopes.com/photos/blackout.asp)

Claim: Photograph shows a satellite view of the August 2003 blackout of northeastern United States and Canada.

Status: False.

Origins: Although the great blackout which struck the northeastern United States and Canada on the afternoon of 14 August 2003 and lasted well into the next day darkened many large North American cities (Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa, New York), it didn't produce nearly as total a zone of blackness as depicted in the image shown above. Artificial light was still quite visible throughout many parts of the northeastern region, as shown in the photograph below:

Genuine satellite images processed by the Air Force Weather Agency and available on the web site the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show the extent of the blacked-out area at 7 hours after the start of the blackout and a comparative shot 20 hours before the initial power failure.

The original image appears to be a composite satellite photograph of nighttime North America which someone has manipulated with an editing program to darken the northeastern area.