Friday, December 01, 2006

Blue, Green & Red Lightning Over Jerome Illinois

The following is a paraphrasing of an actual conversation which took place last night during a winter ice, and snow, storm which hit Jerome, Illinois on the evening of November 30th, 2006. Jerome, Illinois is a suburb of Springfield, Illinois.


Light Spectrum (NASA)

JeromeProphet: That's all we need, you birds need to fly back south before you set off an avalanche.

Wife: Who are you talking to?

JeromeProphet: Nobody Dear (finger points to the sky).

Wife: Oh my God, what is that?

JeromeProphet: What do you think it is?

Daughter: Dad, what are you, and mom talking about?

JeromeProphet: Nothing, it's nothing honey.

Wife: I've never seen green, blue, and red flickering lights in the clouds like that, what is that?

Daughter: (Coming to doorway) Dad, what is that?

JeromeProphet: It's nothing.

Daughter: That's really weird. Come back in, Dad!

Wife: I remember you said that when the tornado hit last Spring that the sky looked like that.

JeromeProphet: Yes, but those were power transformers popping, as the tornado approached.

These lights appear to be coming from directly overhead, from within, or above the clouds. Do you see how the cloud is only illuminated right over this area?

Notice how the light grows outward away from the center as it brightens, and then as the flash diminishes that the area of illumination shrinks back upon itself? It's not like an on-off switch, but more like the light in the bedroom - the one with the dimmer switch.

If you increase the power to the light, the light gets brighter, and it brightens the whole room, but if you reduce power to the bulb the light dims to where only the immediate area around the bulb is visible. It's the same pattern in the cloud above us.

If it were only reflections from a transformer the transformer would have to be directly under the cloud to make the same pattern. To make that amount of light there'd have to be some significant electrical arching (electric sparks caused by a short), yet the power around here is still up, and running.

What about those quick flickers, which look more like a strobe, than a random pattern of light? What about those quick shifts from deep shades of red, to blue, and then to green? Have you ever seen those colors coming from lightning? Have you ever seen those colors coming from electric sparks off of power lines? It doesn't look like electric sparks from downed power lines, or from tranformers to me, and I've seen that on more than one occasion.

Wife: What is that rumbling? Is that thunder?

JeromeProphet: Sounds just like thunder, but I'm not so sure if it is, or not.

Daughter: Dad, come inside, and close the door.

JeromeProphet: There's nothing to be afraid of.

Wife: What is it honey? That's red, and green lightning in the clouds. What's causing that?

Daughter: Yes, what is it Dad?

JeromeProphet: We must look at this scientifically, and not jump to any conclussions. We see strange colored lights, and hear rumbling sounds coming from the cloud?

Wife & Daughter: Right?

JeromeProphet: And that's as much as we can assume, and that is all.

Daughter: (Speaking on phone to boyfriend) It's really weird out above our house, there's green, and red flashing going on. I think it must be aliens.

JeromeProphet: No one said anything about aliens.

Wife: Is lightning green, or red, because I've never seen green, or red lightning before!

JeromeProphet: O.K., do you want my Mr. Science explanation? I believe that oxygen gives off a red color when it is heated into a plasma, and the bluish green would be the color which nitrogen gives off when it is superheated. Obviously this is not an ordinary lightning phenomena. We see white colored lightning because the atmosphere contains a variety of elements which produce a spectrum of colors that combine to form the color white. I've seen colored lightning before on several occasions, but it is rare. The intriguing question is how the oxygen, and nitrogen is being superheated in exclusion of each other.

Daughter: Hey Dad, make sure the side door is locked o.k.?

JeromeProphet: O.K. sweetie, I'm heading to bed. It's not aliens!

5 comments:

Rich Miller said...

I saw those multi-colored flashes as well Thursday night. I was pulling into that 24 hour megastore just southwest of spfld when it happened (went to buy a kerosene heater).

The flashes coincided with a power outage, and I speculated at the time that it was all those incredibly bright street lights at the car dealerships behind the store going off, on, off (with accompanying power surges) that caused the bizarre light display.

JeromeProphet said...

Rich,

I noticed that as well.

Most people would assume that the lights were a result of power lines, heavy with ice, either falling to the ground, or swinging and shorting at the transform.

I no am in no way suggesting that there weren't many instances in which charged power lines weren't doing exactly that.

I've watched in fascination, and horror, as a tornado came straight into our neighborhood. I watched as the sky filled with sudden purplish blue flashes as transformers shorted out as the tornado advanced.

I've seen many similar blue flashes in another ice storm which hit this area many years ago.

Any normal person would assume that those strange colored lights must have been the result of ice shorting out power lines.

Most people have little reason to believe anything other than that.

Interestingly, it is exactly this assumption which allows for such a moment to be exploited.

Read that again, because it is important.

If I fly up into a cloud, and start flashing a red, green, or blue strobe on an average night - there will at least be some rumblings about the source of those lights.

If those same flashes occur on a night in which there is an alternative explanation (plausible denial for those whose fragile psyche need it) then those flashes are much easier to produce without causing a major problem.

Now let's look at the coincidence of the light flashes, and the power flickering.

I noticed that too. I never mentioned it, because I felt it would be a bit too much to ask from my readers.

I'm certain that most of my regular readers don't believe any of what I write about these types of subjects.

I have a very good friend who also blogs, and while he politely tolerates my post on this type of subject he never (ever) comments on them! Despite our friendship he doesn't believe in any of this at all.

When one of your best buddies believes you're either insane, or totally ignorant, for blogging about such topics, you tend to take things a bit conservatively.

But Rich you mentioned it so I'm going to address the subject.

Rich, this isn't the first time I've seen such phenomena (i.e., flickering lights from clouds at the same time power flickers within the home).

I've seen such phenomena many times, over many decades, and when no type of storm what so ever was present (ice storm or otherwise).

Having said that, I'll now destroy my credibility, what little I have by launching an explanation.

Although it may be a natural phenomena I'm inclined to believe otherwise.

Could it be a type of EMF dampening field?

I've noticed that the effect isn't confined to power coming from a power line into a home.

It also appears to effect power from a battery going into a flashlight - especially if the flashlight's battery is already somewhat weak.

How does a flicker of "lighting" within a cloud cause a dampening of energy reaching a light bulb with the rather simple circuit of a flashlight?

With enough money, and a very short period of time I suspect this wouldn't take much to develop, and probably was developed in the 1960s.

Now why would anyone want to take advantage of a storm by testing EMF weapons on a metro area that is already under siege from wind, rain, snow, and ice?

Because they could, and because it provides perfect cover for running such an operation.

Resultant harm?

Unknown.

Possible gain?

Additional development of such a weapon, and experience in using it under extreme weather conditions.

Are we lab rats?

Perhaps, but if there was no harm done, and such weapons are covertly advanced with the goal to defend us - perhaps that's the price we pay for our freedom, and prosperity.

Having said all that, perhaps I'm just crazy.

Anonymous said...

Crazy? No..... Weird defense tests? Very doubtful!

I saw the lights this past Thurs. early friday morning and can tell you as one raised in Minnesota that such flashing lights are not that uncommon during ice and sleet storms. Why? I dunno..... neighbors often felt it was the result of the Aurora Bureolis(sp), the Northern Lights, being seen through the clouds. I've gotta say that the colors present are within the range of colors seen with the NL.

I've seen light shows like this going back into the early 1960s (we moved to Minnesota from central IL in Jan 1961) and neighbors up there had been seeing them all their lives

JeromeProphet said...

HK3fan,

Your response is very important.

You are willing to explore the possibility that light discharges seen in clouds are originating due to natural phenomena, but not through high technology.

You also date observations of such phenomena to at least the 1960s.

Let's try, and go back even further. Human beings have been observing weather for much longer than fifty years, and have been recording those observations.

Has anyone heard, or read of any such multi spectral displays originating from clouds dating further back than the age of aviation?

I for one do not believe the lights were link to the aura.

We (the scientific community) have discovered a link between lower atmospheric electrical discharges, and electrical discharges in the ionosphere (i.e., red sprites, and blue jets).

However, what we need is a model. How is it that oxygen within a low hanging cloud is excited in such quantities that the cloud flashes bright red?

Microwaves on a specific frequency?

What about green? I've seen the aurora even from Central, Illinois on several occasions, and I have seen the green colors too.

The colors I saw the night of the ice storm ranged from a dark green, to a bright green.

From my limited research meteorologist do not believe that such light displays are linked to the aurora.

My own guess is technology.

JP

Anonymous said...

When I was a child there was a huge tornado that hit southeastern Michigan in the '70's. The sky was the color of pea-green soup and the wind's blew debree everywhere. I lived in an apartment complex that had a padio-porch that faced towards the east. I sat and watched as the storm passed on through.

During a moment as the storm raged, the wind calmed down a bit and I saw a flash of red lightning shoot horizontally across the sky, then about a second and a half later, it was followed by a horizontal shot of blue lightning in the exact same direction, and position in the sky as the red one.

I have always wondered how and what it was. From a scientific perspective, lightning can be colored by the pollutents in the sky acting as a filtered lens; simular to how the moon can appear reddish orange at time. And lightning can and does move in a horizontal direction...but it seemed too amazing or coincidental that two bolts would be different colors and go in the same direction within such a small spit second of time.

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