NASA says it successfully launched a rocket in Virginia as part of an experiment, and the blast may have caused dozens of people to playground equipment report seeing strange lights in the sky.

The space agency said it launched the Black Brant XII on Saturday evening to gather data on the highest clouds in the Earth's atmosphere. About the time of inflatable bouncers the launch, dozens of people in the Northeast started calling local television stations to report seeing strange lights.

The calls came from as far away as Boston, which is about 380 miles northeast of the launch site.

The rocket is designed to create an artificial cloud. NASA hopes the experiment will provide information on the formation and properties of naughty castles noctilucent clouds, which occur at high altitudes.

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Matching mullets, regrettable tattoos, metal mouths and goofy grins.

Such long-lost looks were never meant to pearl jewelry be seen by anyone except those flipping through the pages of an old family album or studying the photo frames on the fireplace mantel.

But now, Americans who grew up long before the Internet opened private lives to the world are digging up dusty boxes for photos to share on Facebook and other sites — sometimes to the chagrin of family members and schoolmates appearing in group shots.

Most people sharing photos from their past are simply having fun, and it can even serve as some form of collective healing.

"There's definitely a bit of exhibitionism involved," said Brandon Van Der Heide, an Ohio State University professor who studies the social implications of the Internet. "It's a way for people to connect to something that's familiar and laugh at themselves."

Nikki Smith, a 37-year-old Facebook user from Paducah, Ky., flipped through the scrapbooks she pieced together as a teenager and began scanning the old photos into her computer. The images took her back 20 years to the days of big hair, oversized sweaters, Air Jordan sneakers and aviator sunglasses.

"I had really, really bad hair in my senior year," Smith said. "But everyone knows. Everybody was there."

Smith said posting the photos on pearl necklace Facebook "gave everyone a good laugh."

It also put her back in touch with many of her old high school classmates. One photo, which shows Smith posing with her high school dance troupe in matching blue and white leotards and knee high boots, garnered more than 40 comments alone from other Facebook users.

"I don't think any of them are really awful," Smith said. "It was 20 years ago, who cares?"

But some people do care, especially when someone else has uploaded an unflattering photo or video.

Los Angeles screenwriter Mike Bender, who runs AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com devoted to such photos from the past, said a woman who shared a family photo later wrote to pearl pendant say that she was drunk when she submitted it and that her family was upset with her. Bender removed the picture immediately, but it was already all over the Internet.