Sky flashes in Northern Quebec, CA

My husband and I witnessed this same thing on Fri. 8-15-08 around 8:50pm. We live in South Central Illinois. Sky was clear and just left of the big dipper handle we noticed a bright reddish orange flash, thought it might be a super nova, but it occured 4 more times in the next 10 minutes in the same location. Have never seen this before.

I have seen this in the southern hemisphere in Sydney.

8th August, 10pm, cold night in the mountains (we're still in winter), and I was out for a run.
I saw the sky light up like camera flashes, three times in quick succession. It seemed to originate from a spot directly above me in the sky. That is to say it wasn't originating from the horizon, which I would expect if it were far off lightning activity. It couldn't have been Lightning activity though, as the night conditions were perfectly clear, as it was during the following 48hrs.

Just thought I'd share this, I often stargaze during my rests when I run, but, these flashes were peculiar at the time and unlike anything I've seen before. This thread reminded me of it.

Been seeing night-time whole-sky flashes for over 40 years. Tend to show even better when cloudless nights.

My ex-navy Dad saw them a lot while at sea on nights. He swears he found a correlation with earthquakes far around the world.

I think the 'earthlights' people think they come from geological electrostatic-tension in the earth or something along those lines.

Whatever, they sure are dramatic and a gift to those who get to see them, they elude most people. Well done.

reply to post by tedpi



The same thing happened to me exept it happened only once and the flash was green. This is also happened in the day, around 5 pm.

reply to post by mental modulator


I've seen flashes of lightning without thunder. I've always called it wind lightning. Looks the same as sheet lightning. Same color. But it never comes down from the sky or up from the ground but instead remains above a clouded area and flashes across the sky. Lighting up the entire area. We had it here too just last year. It was a semi clear night. Partial dark clouds and flashes of extremely bright light above those dark clouds I assumed was wind lightning again. No rain. No thunder. I know what meteor showers look like and those are not meteor showers. If there is no such thing as lightning without thunder then I guess there isn't. All I know is that I have seen those flashes of light myself.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


this link wasn't working for me so i corrected it by adding .html to the end and now you can read about what this poster thought this phenomena was caused by:
www.nasa.gov...

[edit on 11/10/2008 by chris_stibrany]

[edit on 11/10/2008 by chris_stibrany]

[edit on 11/10/2008 by chris_stibrany]

for some reason when i try to add more text or an image in an edit up there it kept deleting it...so here is what i tried to say 3 times.
did it look similar to this? it could have been especially as colours can differ due to atmospheric conditions

Originally posted by ziggy1706
Maybe this is what you saw? Meteors, comets cannot light up a sky so it would flash...imposssible! Only way that would happen, is if it was half a mile wide, and exploded in upper atmosphere, which would obviously result in city wiped of map.

Actually, meteors, even relatively small ones (they certainly don't need to be much bigger than a football or even grapefruit in some cases), are more than capable of lighting up the whole sky. I've seen this happen before on many occasions myself. So it's definitely not impossible!

Having said that, meteor flashes would not account for what we are talking about in this thread. The flashes talked about here are regular, where as meteor flashes are random and rare.

Is there any chance these could be flashes from a railway (or tram)? Where I live, we see flashes from electric powered trains, even though we are some distance from the tracks! The sky often lights up around here!

Here's a vid of some bright meteors causing flashes: uk.youtube.com...

Etit to include correct link!

[edit on 11-10-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

[edit on 11-10-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

There is something serious going on in the Toronto region, to be specific, Vaughan, Richmond hill, Markham area. In September 2008 i saw The sky light up with flash, and hold the flash for about 4 to 5 seconds, this was the weirdest #, excuse my french. I saw a singal beam shooting up in the sky, it was white and i was about 15khey m away, and it almost blinded me. What was weird was this beam came from the same location on hw7 Colossus theatre, if people have been to this theatre they will know the roof of the theatre is degined like a UFO and every night has about 6 to 8 flood light shooting up in the sky. So this single beam came from the same location. Few months into the summer, few friends were hanging out at a Dave and busters in this same area, and they reported a ufo hovering over the Ikea store on hw7 woodbridge.

This flash happened twice, and i remember it was 10.50 pm


The weird thing is today January 21st 10.45 pm i was heading south on hwy 400 from hwy7 and leslie, and from my left a huge flash lit up the sky, travelling at 100km it blinded me for a while, and my car is fully dark tinted, but other cars didn't seem to change any speed, it flashed the sky twice, then about 5 mins later again same thing but this time a saw a blue ball. The really scary thing is it appeared to have come from a congested city area and seemed close.

There is something really odd going on in Toronto, specially with this new thing where the sky flashes, but first time i saw a beam going up in the sky, and this time a sort of a blue ball emitting the intense flash. both times i was lucky enought to be looking in the direction of the incident.

what worries me is both times there was no sound, and it was this time it was in a winter month where you don't have thunder bolts.