What's with the glitchy lights?

After lurking around ATS for a year, and then another year and a bit after singing up, I decided I would start my first thread.
I'm not very good at this kinda stuff, as I prefer to stay in the shadows, and only come out when I really have something to say.
Anyways..

After spending Xmas with my family, and having a really good conversation with my dad in the car, as he came to pick me and my boyfriend up *him being the DD for the night*.
My dad is awesome. He's a bit of a nutball, but it was him who raised me to believe and think outside the box. Instead of believing in God, I believed in tales like Bigfoot and the Lochness monster, Aliens, and ghosts.
Though over the years, I grew up and made decisions, and came to conclusions of my own, usually always being a skeptic, but still keeping an open mind... because until it's proven, or disproven I will stand in the middle.

Anyways, onto my topic of discussion.

Xmas eve, driving with my dad and my boyfriend to my parents house, a street light goes out.
No big deal, I barely even noticed it until he points it out.
"Did you see that." He says. ""What?" I replied. "The light, it just went out. That seems to have been happening a lot to me recently. The other day at work, I was telling buddies at lunch about this, and they didn't believe me, and told me to walk up to the light across the street. As I did, not within a few meters, it went out. They were all like 'whoooaaa haha alright, guess we believe you."
I laugh, and respond "that's pretty crazy, yet cool. I wonder what could cause that... Perhaps seem kinda of electrical discharge or something?" "It creeps me out sometimes when I'm alone."

I don't know if it's because of that conversation, that I have been paying more attention, or what, but I swear. Every time I park my car, or if I am leaving my house, and coming up to my car, the light goes out... And if I'm not in the house for long, and run back out, the light will go back on.
Perfect timing.. Every time .... It's kinda spooky.
...and again, I don't know if it's just because it was brought to my attention, but now everywhere I am driving, or walking, I notice lights turning off... Before I just thought glitches, but after talking to my dad really made me wonder...

This is the site to find somewhat of an explanation for whatever oddball experience that happens, and I hope to only get positive feedback *thought its the Internet, and there bound to be trolls and skeptics, just don't be rude*.... I'm not here for the attention, or whatever... Again, this is my first post, and probley will be for some time....

I just want to hear other people's experiences, and ideas.. I mean after so many times, I count out 'coincidence' and start looking else where......

I went to the store with my younger boy last night and I told him on the way that for the last few day, maybe even more than a week, every time I walk past one city light, it goes off. When I come back, it is alight again, but closes as soon as I near it...

What is doing that I have no ideas... Rather perplexing... What are the chances it happens every time I go near it over a week period?

I'm going to say that a lot of your street lamps are likely nearing the end of their life cycles. Generally, street lamps utilize high-pressure gas bulbs, such as ionized mercury or sodium. Nearing the end of their life cycle, they begin to alternate being on or off, and this increases in frequency before, finally, they burn out. Source(s): I'm an electrical engineer with GE Canada.

answers.yahoo.com...


It's part of the design.

reply to post by DaTroof


Yeah, I was going to say energy savers. Don't know how it works, but I've always noticed city lights going out and slowly coming back on like this too. I just figured it was energy savers. Not all city lights will do this though so your explanation here works best.

reply to post by SalientSkivvy


This has been happening to me since I was a teenager. My sister as well, and my father had the same thing going on. Mother and brother, nothing by their reports. Lately it is much more frequent, and often happens several times in the course of a short drive. It also happens at a greater distance than it used to. Used to be about 30-50 feet for me. Now it is more like 70-100 feet.

Over the decades....I'm 54 now....I've developed some sense about it. Though I played with trying to cause it on purpose many times, I was unsuccessful. And it seems to be connected to my emotional state as well. Once, when I had a fight with my girlfriend and was walking home absolutely fuming mad at the world, I walked under at least a dozen in a row, and had them go out as I approached. I noticed at the time, and unlike most times, when I noticed, up to that point, I was so intent on being mad, that it didn't distract me or cause me to focus on the lights themselves. One other time, when I was in an entheogenically altered state, I was able to just sit and play with four or five of them within a couple hundred feet of me, and turn them off at will. They didn't come back on at will....I imagine because the sensors they use to trigger them at dusk are relatively slow acting.

It makes sense to me that things on photo-sensors would be affected, because the trigger for turning them on is very sensitive, but once triggered, electronics takes over the process and completes it. That just a few photons is the tipping point, would seem key to me. Also I've found that often it is the same lights that react to me this way. My theory for that is that there is a bit of variation in the sensor chips, with some being relatively more sensitive than others. I've never tried to observe if those same lights come on either first at dusk or are among the last, though.

I also have always had a problem with watches. It doesn't matter if they are electric or mechanical. After about a week, they stop running. And after a week or two on the dresser, they start working again. The only exception was one of those hideous red number digital watches I got as a graduation gift from high school. That one did work for about two years, until I stopped wearing it because of geek comments I got.

reply to post by SalientSkivvy

Interesting stuff!

There is heaps to read up on here ...
this

Also if you type "lights go out" into search, you will find heaps more.

Originally posted by Rezlooper
reply to post by DaTroof

 

Yeah, I was going to say energy savers. Don't know how it works, but I've always noticed city lights going out and slowly coming back on like this too. I just figured it was energy savers. Not all city lights will do this though so your explanation here works best.

edit on 3-1-2013 by Rezlooper because: (no reason given)

It's not so much an effort to save energy, it's that as a bulb begins its death cycle, it requires more voltage. The light turns off during the cooling process, and turns back on once sufficiently cooled.

Link fixed in my previous post.

s&f

Awesome, thanks for all your replies!

...energy savers.... Interesting..... As I said, Iv always kinda been a skeptic with the supernatural, but am always willing to listen to options, and theories...

... Still, there's this feeling like there's something more....

Originally posted by SalientSkivvy
Awesome, thanks for all your replies!

...energy savers.... Interesting..... As I said, Iv always kinda been a skeptic with the supernatural, but am always willing to listen to options, and theories...

... Still, there's this feeling like there's something more....

I wonder if it relates to the fact that our cable TV is glitchy all the time now, the picture blinks and wavers all the time.

reply to post by SalientSkivvy


This has happened to me off and on. There was one time I was walking through campus in college and 3 or 4 lights went off in a row as I approached them. It freaked me out when it happened. I was walking by myself and I tend to get paranoid as it is. I didn't know what to think of it.

I don't have an explanation for it, but I think it has something to do with individual people's energy. It's just a theory. But I follow astrology somewhat and I find that a lot of the earth signs that I know have a lot of dissonance with electronics and electricity in general. I am an earth sign myself and when I am around my boyfriend's laptop, the internet will stop working or things will forget to load or entire webpages will disappear. I thought I was just crazy for a while or that I was doing something to make these things happen. Or maybe they were just coincidence. But my boyfriend says the same thing happens with his mom (who is also an earth sign). She even stops watches from working.

It's just a theory, but I think it has something to do with energies crossing each other or something. That theory at least eases my mind a little so I'm not as freaked out by it.

Over the years I have had them go both on and off. I think I am a little more observant than most and just noticed the pattern. Odd how they went out or came on when I went under them though. I am still on the fence if it is influence or wishful thinking...

reply to post by DaTroof


Thanks for the info, makes more sense. I was just guessing, because I've also noticed lights go out many times and that's just what I assumed.

Originally posted by Char-Lee

I wonder if it relates to the fact that our cable TV is glitchy all the time now, the picture blinks and wavers all the time.

My wife recently mentioned to me that the TV was doing this, so I paid attention and sure enough we've noticed that too.