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lightning

paul wheaton

author and steward

Posts: 59708

Location: missoula, montana (zone 4)

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posted 15 years ago

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Just a short video of some lighting at my house

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Posts: 0

posted 15 years ago

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It's always nice to view from a distance.

I've had the up close experience a couple times in our mountains... 100 feet is very close, very loud.

If anyone is interested there are some links to lightning sites on this page
http://www.illiniweather.com/pages/lightning.htm

One of the coolest sites is not available to the general permies. I've had the good fortune to be able to see it through forest fire officials around home. They can see a map detailing all the local strike information.

paul wheaton

author and steward

Posts: 59708

Location: missoula, montana (zone 4)

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posted 13 years ago

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I stopped the video because the wind was blowing so hard that my eyes were filling up with dirt/dust. With the wind blowing so hard, surely no insect would be flying around.

There were no lights behind me.

So what is the flying thing at the end of the video?

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Kyle Williams

Posts: 53

Location: Olympia, WA

posted 13 years ago

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It looked to me as if it was close to the ground. If I'm right about that, my first guess is someone with a headlamp on who was out looking around, perhaps walking a dog. A possible contributing factor, and I'm not one to comment on the shakiness of your other videos, I love all of them; but perhaps said shakiness contributed to the appearance of something flying around erratically, when it was really just car headlights, or someone with a bright headlamp?

My 2nd guess would be that someone was talking with Ernie about heating water with a rocket mass heater, and Ernie got so fed up with it that his body spontaneously turned into a ball of fission powered light and smote the fool in fantastic fashion.

My 3rd guess would be aliens. Definitely aliens.

Tyler Ludens

pollinator

Posts: 11856

Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8

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posted 13 years ago

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Because the camera is moving a great deal we can't tell if the object is stationary or moving. I think the most likely explanation is car headlights or other light at some distance. Another explanation could be "ball lightning" "plasma sphere" "orb" "energy vortex" or, of course, Sasquatch.

http://www.weatherquesting.com/ball-lightning.htm

Idle dreamer

Chris Kott

pollinator

Posts: 3847

Location: Marmora, Ontario

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posted 13 years ago

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I like the aliens explanation. I think The ball lightning/plasma ball might be plausible. I think it would be very disappointing if it turned out to be a headlamp or other anthropogenic source. I think it could even be a terminator come back to spread CFL disinformation and eliminate CFL deniers. But if Ernie and a RMH are involved, I'd say someone made the ducting too large, and instead of heating water, they created a fission reactor that quickly melted down.

Or aliens.

-CK

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein

Gordon Hogenson

Posts: 29

posted 13 years ago

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Of course it's too poor quality a video to tell much of anything, but maybe it's an "orb". There's an entire mythology developing around these roundish light blobs that people see on film, not necessarily visible to the eye. Whether these have some conventional explanation, such as lens artifacts caused by the path of light through the camera, or are some genuine paranormal phenomena, I couldn't say for sure, but the widespread belief is that orbs are emanations from the departed.

This site gives a flavor of it:
http://www.angelsghosts.com/orbs.html

But pay no attention to me, I'm just a crazy guy who lives in the woods with goats and chickens.

Jonathan Pynchon

Posts: 6

posted 13 years ago

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Stepping through the video shows the horizon changing position in the screen; the camera is tilting/handheld so much of the vertical motion of that light is in-camera. Without more light in the sky to indicate the horizon through to the end of the take there is insufficient data to take a guess at what it is. Just another unidentified (possibly flying) object.

JP

Which would be a more effective bumper sticker: "Do the right thing" or "Be a good human"?

Oliver Griswold

Posts: 5

posted 13 years ago

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Most likely an outdoor light that got turned on while you were filming. You're camera is bouncing all over the place but at one point you can clearly see the horizon has shifted dramatically from before. Thus the light would appear to be "flying" about when what is really happening is that your camera is tilting all over the place. Of course, it could be aliens which would be way cooler than your shaky camera work <g> ...

Oliver...
North Woods Ranch

Oliver...
www.NWoodsRanch.com

Jay Kemp

Posts: 12

posted 13 years ago

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looks like a fixed light on the horizon, probably somebody's outside light left on.

Jay Blaze
Executive Director
SE Wisconsin NORML
JayBlaze@SEWisconsinNORML.org

Ellis Ryan

Posts: 16

posted 13 years ago

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It looks like it's just above the tree line and seems to be too bright to be a house light so i don't know what it is. Unless your near a military base, then it's aliens.

Lori Crouch

Posts: 104

Location: Amarillo, TX.

posted 13 years ago

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It's the Pie Fairy and she can't find you! QUICK! TURN ON THE LIGHT BEFORE SHE LEAVES!!!

Raven Sutherland

Posts: 167

Location: MAINE

posted 13 years ago

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it's a UHO Paul

an Unidentified Hovering Object

Nice Video....next time wear eye protection
we need your eyes to be in excellent condition

Erica Wisner

gardener

Posts: 1292

Location: Okanogan Highlands, Washington

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posted 13 years ago

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I can vouch for Ernie's whereabouts: we were in Oregon on the dates in question. Although we may not have been in the same room at all times, so I can't absolutely eliminate the possibility of a personal explosion visible across three states, I think I would have noticed.

It does appear to be on/near the horizon at each point where the horizon is visible. I would guess it's a ground-effect (like a hand-lamp, or porch light swinging in the wind) at a long distance, where maybe there are some trees making it brighter or dimmer (larger or smaller in the camera's limited focus) as the wind whips them around. I have heard of ball lightning, but never seen it; but I understand it sticks to surfaces like the ground / buildings. I think it's more likely to be a visual artifact from a more mundane source.

-Erica

Projects, plans, resources - now on the Permies.com digital marketplace.
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Denice Moffat

Posts: 46

Location: U.S.A.

posted 13 years ago

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I vote for the UFO theory. Did you report it to MUFON? They may be able to verify other sightings that night. Here's the link: http://www.mufon.com/

Denice Moffat
Head Weeder at Our Permaculture Homestead

Jeanine Gurley Jacildone

pollinator

Posts: 1459

Location: Midlands, South Carolina Zone 7b/8a

posted 13 years ago

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Cool lightning. My grandma always planted cucumbers on a metal fence because she said they would grow better because of the lightening -- I have no idea but she always had great cukes.

The thing? I think it is an orb. I do quite a bit of studying of orbs and 'IMO' they generally are just energy; probably randomly forming and dissipating. I think if someone was willing to spend the research money we could probably scientifically measure the whole orb phenomenon thing and figure out how they form and what they do. There's no money to be made there though.

1. my projects

Denice Moffat

Posts: 46

Location: U.S.A.

posted 13 years ago

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I saw a video last year on crop circles (I think I rented it from Net Flix) anyway, there was a circular orb like thing that was videotaped in the field just after the crop circle appeared. it had a holographic look to it but it reminded me of this orb thing in Paul's video. It was only a few seconds like in Paul's video then it skipped across the field and was gone. Bizarre, but totally awesome.

Denice Moffat
Head Weeder at Our Permaculture Homestead

To do a great right, do a little wrong - shakespeare. twisted little ad:

Our PIE page has been updated, anybody wanna test?

https://permies.com/t/369340/PIE-page-updated-wanna-test