Recently we stayed for a week in an inland village on Rhodes. There was no industry nearby and we barely saw a cloud all week. At night when we looked up we could see one star. Yes, one.
I recall when I was a boy scout in Bristol and we went out out into the countryside to go camping the sky was full of stars and the Milky Way fulfilled its poetic requirement to look like a white silk scarf thrown carelessly across the sky. More recently, a few years ago, we stopped for the night in Beycik - a mountain village on the Lycian Trail high above Tekrova, a little way south of Kemer on the west coast of the Tepe Peninsula. As night fell the stars emerged in their thousands and the Milky Way was bright across the sky. So strongly did the stars shine that they appeared to hang a mere 100ft over our heads; to be so close as to oppress us with their perceived weightiness. We could easily see how, for thousands of years, humans were in awe of the majesty of the firmament. Today, in the UK and many other places, it is barely visible. Unless they have visited remote mountainous areas young people today will have never seen this awesome sight and stared in wonderment. We have lost a great deal.
So who stole it? I guess we did: with our industry and our fossil fuel consumption causing air pollution; and all of our illuminating lamps creating light pollution. Our decisions eradicated the splendour of the night sky. I miss it.