Have you ever seen 'moonshine'?

This is something I experienced exactly once about a year ago. (Whenever I heard the phrase, I thought they meant ordinary light shining off the moon.)

However, one evening in the summer I looked outside my window in response to an owl hooting and found the ground covered in a blanket of snow. Since it was about 70 degrees outside, I needed to investigate. To my amazement, the snow did not disappear when I got closer -- it wasn't that kind of mirage. Even when I stood on the ground, it looked like I was standing in snow. The moon light had some kind of strange polarization (?) and it was so bright and direct everything it touched was bleached.