UFO-like ‘earthquake light’ mystery solved by scientists

The study researchers identified an electrical current that flows out of some earthquake fault lines as the composite plates that constitute the crust pull away from each other. This electricity may be what’s forming the lights.

magma rocks tend to have crystalline structures—a byproduct of the intense heat and pressure to which they have been subjected for eons—and these crystalline structures are conducive to forming electricity when subjected to heavy friction. The electricity would flow to the surface, ionize in the air, and create flashes of light.

UFO-like ‘earthquake light’ mystery solved by scientists

this link is better

www.livescience.com...

"You have two sides of a piece of continent are pulling apart and in the middle there's a part that just falls vertically down," often by miles over millions of years, Freund told LiveScience. These rifts form steep, nearly vertical faults that stretch deep into the Earth's magma, allowing primitive magmatic rocks that were once deep below ground to migrate closer to the Earth's surface. The authors think that because of the crystal structure of these magmatic rocks, when stressed they are likelier to generate electricity, which then flows to the Earth's surface, ionizes the air, and produces flashes of light. The earthquake lights also appeared at other nearly vertical faults, for example, the strike-slip San Andreas fault. These faults likely make it easier for electrical charges in these dark magmatic rocks to reach the surface, said study co-author John Derr, a seismologist at the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory.

Maybe at the end most of the UFO like light balls not related to secret air craft are just natural fenomena

reply to post by Indigent


Hmmm, in the title I see "Solved" and in the rest of the post I see "might" and "maybe". Seems more like a hypothesis or theory to me.

reply to post by Indigent


I have been saying this for years. Massive amounts of electrical energy can be created due to the compression and expansion of piezoelectric crystals deep in the earth. These crystals are common in magmatic rock and some crystals act as natural capacitors.

When the crust shifts, causing an earthquake, this energy is instantly released and it has to discharge somewhere. Bursts of electrical energy near the ground have often been known to cause light bursts and light balls for decades.

While the electrical discharge from crushing and movement of deep underground rock does provide some reason into the earthquake light phenomenon, I still hold out some doubts. If the lights only occurred when there was ground movement going on then the link is clear, but how these lights can be present before an earthquake does take place trashes any theories that the ground movements are causing the lights.

reply to post by dainoyfb


that's how science works theory>observation>model, to say something is exact, written in stone and ruling out the possibility of other plausible explanations is called having faith and that's not how science works

they analyzed data and came to a conclusion, the title is from the news source i used as is required by ats to post news.

intl-srl.geoscienceworld.org...

I'm not familiarized with this publication but it seems to be peer reviewed, dont have access to it and wont spend 20$ to say if just a wild guess or real conclusions, but it seems you can just by reading news about it and not the source

reply to post by Indigent


Ehn. I doubt the mystery is "solved." More steps towards earthquake prediction, which will be as reliable as weather prediction. Meaning it won't be reliable because the fools keep looking for direct cause-and-effect and can't wrap their heads around systems and multifactorial interactions.

Lightning discharges in the atmosphere are familiar, but what about the ones underground?

...If earthquakes are underground lightning bolts, then perhaps seismic waves are the thunderclaps. In that case, it seems likely that the majority of energy release during an earthquake is not from the fracturing and movement of rock strata, but is the result of electrical energy detonating within the matrix.

Scientists Seek Foolproof Signal to Predict Earthquakes

reply to post by Indigent


Yes, I was complaining about the reporting method not about your post. You are correct about having to use the title as is and I think that has some logistical issues at times. I avoid that problem by posting in other topics.

Thanks you for bringing this too us.

They have not solved the lights at all. Maybe some lights can be explained by the theory, but not all can. Do earth movements create radiant white motherships that rain candy floss on you as you are surrounded by the lights?

reply to post by ufoorbhunter


How can you come with things like that when it clearly states earthquakes related lights

reply to post by Indigent

okay, so lets recreate this phenomenon in the laboratory and find out if we can harvest this potential into new discoveries. Perhaps something like an electricity "magnifier" of some sort can come out of this.

I'm seeing all sorts of undiscovered science in this phenomenon

reply to post by kwakakev


You have to remember that the deep ground movements are occurring all of the time, not just during an earthquake. Most fault lines lie deep under the surface, but they also have relatively open pathways to the surface, sometime pathways of piezoelectrical conductivity. This would allow these lights to occur both before, during, and after an earthquake. I'm not saying that this explains all earthquake lights, but the simplest solution is usually the correct one, and this solution is far simpler than many that I have read.

reply to post by gamesmaster63


What about the northern lights? An already common light effect established by electromagnetic interactions between the solar winds and the earths core. When looking at seismicelectromagnitism the ionosphere is holding some interesting results.

As an experiment, lets say we did release a trillion watts a few kilometers underground. How much of that energy would be grounded before even reaching the surface of the Earth, let alone providing enough power to produce colorful lights in the sky. Are you aware of any earthquake lights associated with underground nuclear tests?

reply to post by kwakakev


the detail of this explanation is the crystallinity of the material raising in the deep vertical faults faults a earth quake energy is several times a nuke

Can this effect be reproduced artificially or in a laboratory environment? Or are the forces involved too tremendous to attempt it at our current abilities?

Maybe it could be a little of both? The UFOs know where a quake will occur and so they can absorb the excess energy released from a seismic event? Or they simply like to monitor potentially important events on our planet?

reply to post by Indigent


Sure the power of a nuke is not the same as tectonic plate drift, but they can both be detected all around the world through seismic readings. In bringing up the nuke example it was to see if there is some situation which could reproduce or accurately predict these lights and help confirm there source.

These lights are rare and elusive making it quite difficult to narrow down just what exactly is going on.