You're right - I apologize. Sycophancy is indeed a better word to describe my behaviour. Would like me to rewrite the article and replace the usage of flattery with sycophancy?
A similar but more recent career trajectory: Elliot Hill, the incoming Nike CEO started at Nike as a store sales intern and was already head of Nike EMEA retail by around age 34 (in the year 2000)
Last night from London the most I could see with my naked eye was diffuse patches of faint pink and green - sometimes highlighted by marginally brighter white-pink streaks that cut across the patches. The camera however picked them up as dramatic bright pink/green columns of light with rarely any trace of the blackness of the sky.
When I was in Iceland a few years ago though - I distinctly remember being easily able to make out super bright and well define dancing wavy bands of bright green, pink, purple and orange (with high contrast compared to the surrounding dark sky) with my naked eye. The camera again picked up the same thing but with the blackness of the sky covered by a green /pink coloured background - something definitely brighter but less well defined that what I could see with my naked eye (and the camera images were not necessarily superior than what I could see in this case).
TL:DR; I’ve seen both versions of what you describe with my naked eye and it’s definitely not bullshit! When people say they can’t see anything like the pictures - I would have to guess that they either have never been in an area with significant activity or maybe didn’t have dark enough skies without light pollution.