Sprites, Blue Jets, Elves and "Superbolts"

I really couldn't find a forum labeled "fringe theory's" so I'll place this in the fragile earth forum since some of the material presented has something to do with natural phenomenon.

I have no idea if anybody else came to this questionable conclusion but I found it rather coincidental and I would really like to share with you something I noticed this morning.

While going through a thread on ATS about a UFO Light show over Switzerland (this one ) I was simultaneously watching a documentary on Discovery about Operation Fishbowl...

It occurred to me that, apart form all the standard explanations for the lights that were observed (hot air balloons, skydivers etc) it might actually be free floating lights but with a more natural explanation.

During operation Fishbowl scientist discovered that the electro magnetic pulse (EMP) generated by the nuclear explosion at high altitude triggered a strange phenomenon where the light from the explosion was also (almost simultaneously) observed in the conjugate region of the opposite hemisphere. Apparently the EMP traveled along the Earth's magnetic field lines to the other side. (lacking scientific knowledge here... )

So I started looking for the conjugate region on the opposite hemisphere for Switzerland for a possible event that occurred there that might have triggered these lights. Apparently this is in the neighborhood of Johannesburg, South Africa.... only nothing much happened there around the time of the lights being observed.

Except for a violent thunderstorm that was brewing, which apparently was so impressive that many South African blog site and forum was filled with pictures of lightning strikes and storm cloud pictures.

WeatherUnderground

WeatherUnderground

WeatherUnderground

Now, those scientist from Operation Fishbowl already discovered that the height of the explosion is important...

According to the DOD nuclear weapon effects reference, "Because the beta particles have high velocities, the beta auroras in the remote (southern) hemisphere appeared within a fraction of a second of those in the hemisphere where the burst had occurred. The debris ions, however, travel more slowly and so the debris aurora in the remote hemisphere, if it is formed, appears at a somewhat later time. The beta auroras are generally most intense at an altitude of 30 to 60 miles, whereas the intensity of the debris auroras is greatest in the 60 to 125 miles range. Remote conjugate beta auroras can occur if the detonation is above 25 miles, whereas debris auroras appear only if the detonation altitude is in excess of some 200 miles."[8]

But the similarity I found striking was with the phenomenon called Elves...

What is an elve?
The elve was first theoretically predicted by scientists at Stanford University in the early 1990s and then observationally confirmed by imagers on the Space Shuttle and the ground (by Tohoku University scientists) several years thereafter. The elve results from an especially powerful electromagnetic radiation pulse (EMP) that emanates from certain lightning discharges. As the energy passes upwards through the base of the ionosphere it causes the gases to briefly glow. Though as bright as a sprite, the elve only lasts for less than a thousandth of a second. This makes elves virtually impossible to see with the naked eye. They are most likely red in color, and if you could see them, they would look like giant expanding doughnuts.They occur at a height of around 60-65 miles, and can expand outward to several hundred miles in diameter

Sprites, blue jets, elves and superbolts

Do you suppose it is possible that these sporadically generated Elves are capable of producing the same phenomenon as the one discovered by the scientist of Operation Fishbowl??

Just trowing it out there people. I lack any form of knowledge or education in this field but I couldn't deprive you guys of my weird brainfart....

Peace

PS: With weather patterns changing lately maybe this can be an explanation for the increase of sightings of lights in the sky.....

Can you imagine a violent thunderstorm on the southern hemisphere, say the pacific ocean, generating such powerful discharges (Elves) that the EMP travels along the Earth's magnetic field line to the other side of that field line, in this case the U.S main land, displaying that same discharge only without the storm.....

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ecedade06852.gif[/atsimg]

Is this possible??

Peace

What a nice side effect a thread can have......reading up on a lot of interesting things!!

Apparently these upward super bolts are also a thing of force but do they generate an electromagnetic pulse??

We are beginning to think that true “upward lightning” may well exist. Regular lightning flashes can sometimes jump outside the parent cloud, and rarely extend a short distance (less than a mile) above storm tops. But a growing number of reports describe brilliant white channels extending upwards many tens of thousands of feet above storm tops. They resemble ordinary lightning channels, but also appear to last much longer, up to one or two seconds, and do not flicker. They also seem to grow upward out of the cloud, and upon reaching their maximum height, the entire channel dims away. They may well occur above the tops of explosively growing clouds. They often occur every few minutes, and episodes can last for a half hour or more

Sprites, Blue jets and Elves

If so then my theory may also apply to these super bolts manifesting in the conjugate hemisphere....??

Here are some nice pictures of sprites and blue jets...

Sprite picture gallery

Peace

reply to post by operation mindcrime


A lightning bolt is an electromagnetic pulse, so, yes, if an upward discharge were powerful enough it might be able generate aurora-like phenomena elsewhere. It would need to be extremely energetic, and the display would be very brief... nevertheless, it might be interesting to look at some UFO cases and see if they correlate with exceptionally violent storms elsewhere.

reply to post by DJW001

Cool!! Thanks for that answer...

I was wondering if those high energy discharges that happen above a storm cell and hitch a ride along a magnetic field line to the other hemisphere might all use the same magnetic field line (the strongest??) so that it creates a continuous visual display on the other side....??

Is that even possible?? Time to dig deeper.....

In any case, next video posted of lights in the sky will get extra attention from me!! Oh joy, a new hobby!!!

Peace

I think I am looking in the right direction if I try and understand this whole "Van Allen radiation belt"-thing first but that's quite a lot......

In the belts, at a given point, the flux of particles of a given energy decreases sharply with energy.

At the magnetic equator, electrons of energies exceeding 500 keV (resp. 5 MeV) have omnidirectional fluxes ranging from 1.2×106 (resp. 3.7×104) up to 9.4×109 (resp. 2×107) particles per square centimeter per second.

The proton belts contain protons with kinetic energies ranging from about 100 keV (which can penetrate 0.6 mm of lead) to over 400 MeV (which can penetrate 143 mm of lead)

hmmmm....yeah right. I know for a fact there are actually people on ATS that understand this stuff so I'll be d*mned if I can't get my head around this.....

Can anybody tell me if I am on the right track if I use this tool for figuring out the conjugate region of the next location where lights are spotted??

Really appreciate it if somebody could tell me....

Peace

Just picking up the first thread that seems interesting:

Last night, 10-31-2010

His location is Ontario, California or lat: 34.063274, long: -117.67953
Occurrence started at 09:00 UTC

case:

"strait over the horizon, south... what I thought was one of those Chinese lanterns, but it was too big", gone after 5 minutes. "an hour later I seen around the same area a blue blinking light....then it took off strait up"

13:00 UTC

"Around 9pm....huge white glowing light"..."purple tint on the upper left corner...went over my house and drifted off for a minute, then flickerd off"

15:00 UTC

"11pm off to the south west. I seen a orange hovering light. This was there for about 2 minutes then, bam... started to blink out, then it turned into 3 red lights and then took off"

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Apparently the time between these sightings (09:00 / 13:00 / 15:00 UTC) doesn't seem to interfere too much with the location of origin, according to the models, so I will spare the extra work and will have to produce only one screenshot:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8bd514c2cb4b.jpg[/atsimg]
(the image say November 2de, I reckon that should be November 1st!!)

It appears the source is about 1000/1500 miles east of New Zealand. Let's see what the weather reports have to say about the situation in that location on the morning of November 1st:

(3 hrs later)............. I give up. My 20KB/s connection is not allowing me too retrieve information about the region I am interested in. Anybody have any information about the weather (especially high energy clouds) on November 1st, 07:00 till 13:00 over the Pacific Ocean, 1500 miles east of New Zealand?? Oz?? Help me out here!!! I need a good link for such information......

It's probably nothing but I need it for future use as part of my new hobby.

Peace

reply to post by operation mindcrime


I checked the New Zealand Australian and Chilean meteorological services: clear weather, although there is a tropical storm brewing due west of Australia.

reply to post by DJW001

DJW001,

I may have scr*wed up on the KP values. I estimated them to have been around 1, since NOAA isn't giving me any feedback as well. Are you able to check the KP indices?? sec.noaa.gov has been off line for me all day!!!

Arghhh!!!! I need a better connection!!

Thanks for checking though.

Peace

Nice, S&F
This is outa my brains departments

Hmmmm....going from one theory to the next. (let's just call this thread: "work in progress, connecting the dots")

Just found this thread by tarifa37:

Bright lights over Auckland New Zealand 31 October 2010

Now what is the connection between this thread and the "Ontario, California 10-31-2010" one??

This one: Last night, 10-31-2010

Nothing much accept that both places are both at end (or beginning if you will) of the same magnetic field line!!!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/557c1b59bd38.jpg[/atsimg]

I am going to step away from my current theory on high energy discharge in clouds and look at other factors that might influence this field line.

Both "sightings" were done on 31-10-2010. Where the Californian one saw these lights around 17:00 / 18:00 / 21:00 and 23:00 local time (-7hrs UTC, ie. between 10:00AM and 16:00PM 31-10-2010) and the New Zealand one was spotted "at the end of the day"... (+13hrs UTC, ie. somewhere around 09:00am 01-11-2010)(astronomical twilight ends at 21:30 at this time of year in NZ)

I did find something interesting about precipitation of currents from the ionosphere into the magnetosphere (something about Alfvén waves). Could it be that the strength or density of the solar wind could cause these manifestations? In that case it might be interesting to look at the correlation between solar flares/CME's and YouTube video's of lights in the sky.....

I also found something about Earth origin EM pulses, where the theory is that high pressure rock can generate EMP's (Many animals can sense changes in Inaudible infra-wave sounds and electromagnetic pulses (EMP).) So there might also be a correlation between earthquake activity and YouTube video's of lights in the sky....

I know, a lot of speculation but this is all about connecting perceived dots. I find the correlation between the two locations mentioned earlier quite remarkable and I am certain (well...at least I suspect) there has to be a connection. With my connection speed it will probably take me ages to find something but at least it's keeping me busy....

Just posting interim conclusion and findings for anybody interested..(which probably is only me). Please don't flame me for my amateurish attempt at understanding science, I am just having fun here....

Peace

Weather was always something I was interested in as a child, but something that felt flat as I grew older. This is certainly something I'd like to sink my teeth into and I think you have done a great job with the thread so a star and flag is in order .

Sprites are something I really have come to marvel and wonder at especially after just learning about them perhaps a year or so ago from this same site. The name alone caught my attention and the way in which we perceive them to work was another reason. Hmm I could definitely see this being linked with lights that are seen in the night sky. It could definitely add up especially if perhaps it is too bright in the day time so it's not as noticeable unless you are looking for it and have the right "gear" perhaps? Though when the sun goes down and it's dark, oh boy this thread just got me excited I think I'll be watching this one for a while as it seems to quite the entertaining one and informative

reply to post by Gigantea Rosa


I share your enthusiasm!!

I think most "educated" people on this site will ignore this experimental, uneducated mess I am making and I really can't blame them.

I found this at the bottom of some website and I am using it as my baseline:

Can I make a great scientific discovery?
Yes. We are far from knowing all there is about the physical world about us. But science is not just a matter of coming up with some wild idea. Science is a very deliberate and serious process. To be a scientist, one must follow the scientific method. Science is the process of creating knowledge, first by making observations or theoretical calculations, and then proposing a hypothesis. Other scientists then strive to find pieces of evidence to prove - or disprove - the notion. Science is forever proposing ideas, and then promptly tearing them down, only to replace them with even more complete hypotheses which explain the physical world. It is critical to know what other scientists have learned so that each new observation can be related to what is known, or not known, about the physical world. And the more you know about science, the greater the likelihood that you may realize the great importance of some strange and unexpected observation. Rather than shrugging your shoulders and saying, “What the heck was that?” you may realize your sighting fills in a big blank in the scientific puzzle matrix…in other words, you understand the relevance of your discovery.

Science is NOT about ego or current belief or politics. It is about truth. A scientist can have an idea, a hypothesis as we put it. The idea might be right, it might not. A true scientist tells the community, “Hey, I have an idea. What do you think?” Other scientists will gladly tell him or her, “You are on the right track,” or “You’re all wet,” and here are the reasons why. It is a process of give and take. Listening and learning. Science deals with observations. Hard FACTS. This give and take is long, arduous, and sometime bruising to egos. But the ultimate goal is to find one thing - the truth as best we can know it.

Sprites, Blue Jets, Elves and "Superbolts"

Inspirational.. I do not even come remotely close to what might be considered as a scientist but I guess my task is clear, learn all there is to know about these sprites, blue jets, elves and super bolts. My Internet connection is really really really slow, so it's going to take a little longer but if I find anything, I will post it here.

Peace

Next case:

Cosmic event-Two fireballs cross US and Canadian airspace,

Apparently NASA even caught this one so let's see what happens...

long: 48° 41.458
Lat: 95° 37.500

Time: 05/11/2010 - 04:13:55 (UTC)

Great balls of fire have been reported swooping over Eastern Canada and several U.S. states. Even NASA's on the case.

Conjugate region of this location is somewhere in the neighborhood of Puerto Natales, Chile.

I still can't seem to find a decent weather map that allows me to see registered lightning strikes but I did find out that lightning doesn't like to discharge over open water. If we look at the weather map below, we can see a "front" coming in on the west coast of southern Chile. This map show the precipitation in that front from 01:00 till 07:00 UTC. Could the electro magnetic charge have build up, with sprite and elve's discharging from cloud to cloud, until it hit mainland Chile at around 07:00 UTC??

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e25139d207d0.jpg[/atsimg]
(image is a little vague but I am talking about the area which is encircled in white)

Notice how at 01:00 and 07:00 the precipitation is higher than at around 04:00 (time of the sighting in Canada)??....Just looking for connections here but I could really use some help in confirming if there even was lightning at around this time and how one should read a weather map. I.e. OzWeatherman, where are you!?!?!

Peace