who's seen some bizzaro atmospheric phenomena?

[dUg]

Topic came up last week when a friend described having ball lightning pass through her car while she was driving, and I related how I'd seen it once and how similar what we saw was.

There's some very weird sh1t in the sky at times, so tell me... what have you seen?

( btw.. UFO's / ET / secret aircraft testing / X-Files trainspotters... perhaps start your own li'l thread in Tangents and non-surf talk... k? I am referrring to "real" stuff here )

[daryl]

Here in Massachusetts day before yesterday, my mate called it a rainbow, looked like a glowing hunk of cloud with an orange line down one side, the sun was someplace else. There was snow building in the sky, just it was a dirty looking sky, not like home . Some kind of pollution I expect, not pretty.

[OddaP]

These clouds.

300px-Middleeastmamatus.jpg (8.04 KiB) Viewed 7081 times

Was working in Gilbraltor Ranges NP 7 years ago and it was a dry hot,summer. A weakish change had come through and mercifully the temperature really cooled down. You could almost feel the pressure change as a storm brewed overhead and then these developed. Quite stunning in the later afternoon night.

And one of these,

This was great, drinking goon at South Newie with 2 mates before a Porkers gigs 18 years ago. Summer afternoon with a southerly blowing. We watched 1 form out to sea almost in line with newie point and travel south the lenght of the beach. It ended as quickly as it started.

[el rancho]

^^^^^^

good picture

saw one of these off Noosa this year, think around easter.

mega thuderstorm coming in from the east, waaaay out to sea, before I spotted the waterspout to the north east, on the horizon.

I'd never seen one before, got a picture too.

amazing experience.

[vb]

Over northern beaches about 25 years ago . ..
Night and literally thousands of mini lightning strikes (high altitude I guess 'cos no noise) every second covering the entire sky. Never seen it since

[Revolution]

[SAsurfa]

A moon-bow

Driving back from Yorkes one night and driving up the Peninsula looking back over the gulf with clear skies over me and big rain clouds towards Port Wakefield.

I had heard that for a moon-bow to occur you need the moon to be behind you while looking into the rain, much like having the sun behind you when seeing a rainbow.

So the moon was big and full and rising from the east so I had no chance of seeing it on the Yorke Peninsula side, but once I rounded the bend and started to head back down towards Adelaide I looked out into the ocean, with the storm hanging in the middle of the gulf and there across the sky in pitch blackness was a moon-bow

It was just the same as a rainbow but all white, couldn't believe it, it was pretty amazing

Apparently the moon has to be below a certain angle on the horizon to see it (too high and there's no chance).

So if you add up the chances of having a full bright moon with clear enough skies to let the light through, with a storm raining opposite to the moon, as the moon rises (ie before it gets too high) then I think you can see the chances are pretty low on seeing one..

[mustkillmulloway]

outside birdville...near the border

three lights hovering about a k away

big round bright lights

10 mins than they dissappeared, like just gone, in a sec ...not fade or fly away

went straight the pub ....told no one

standard procedure for that type event

[willie]

More outer space stuff. This website uploads a new pic a day of some crazy crazy stuff. amazing pictures.

check em at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

[otway1949]

Here in Massachusetts day before yesterday, my mate called it a rainbow, looked like a glowing hunk of cloud with an orange line down one side, the sun was someplace else. There was snow building in the sky, just it was a dirty looking sky, not like home . Some kind of pollution I expect, not pretty.

Daryl it must have been a not in Kansas wind, one day on the south coast next day in Massachusetts WTF but enjoy anyway you can maybe go to a tea party!

[TMC]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:A ... _phenomena

[daryl]

Here in Massachusetts day before yesterday, my mate called it a rainbow, looked like a glowing hunk of cloud with an orange line down one side, the sun was someplace else. There was snow building in the sky, just it was a dirty looking sky, not like home . Some kind of pollution I expect, not pretty.

Daryl it must have been a not in Kansas wind, one day on the south coast next day in Massachusetts WTF but enjoy anyway you can maybe go to a tea party!

Tea party! Cafeteria hot soup at uni more like This is the rain and slush after the snow Wet drive.mp4 Sorry vid is so crook, can't drive an film at the same time, drive down was a mother, 30mph all the way in a 55/65 I miss 4wd

[Kunji]

Apparently this family were driving back across the Nulabour and a UFO was ahead. They drove under it but it started to follow them right above their car. They shut all the windows and could hear a hissing sound. There also was a fair stentch coming from it. The ufo was a a large spherical light about the same size as their volvo wagon. After a few minutes of extremely fast driving, the ufo wandered off to the side of the road and appeared to shoot into millions of pieces. They checked their car after and the roof was burnt. They reported it to authorities as a ufo but under later investigation it was decided it was Ball lightning. I think Ball lightning is St. Elmos Fire???

Another famous case happened on a plane, literally, full of scientists. It slowly wandered down the aisle and disappeared.

Ive also head of Bluesky Lightning. A perfect blue sky with not a cloud in sight. and lightning just zaps the ground in an instant. Apparently its from days of dry condtions and barely any wind. The dust particles generate enough static electricity and eventually unleashes.

However the most interesting lightning ive heard are Sprites and Elves. They occur far above the clouds in the Ionosphere. And they go up! There are some vids of them captured from satellites and such but i dont have access to youtube here.

But here is neat pic.

[puurri]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... z0ZEDgXwSS

Of course the Russkies would go for "plausability" after first denying that it was a dud missile launch. Maybe they're playing with Klystron generators or a variant of the LHD that went feral? HAAST anyone?

[black duck]

My father has seen what he thought to be ball lightning.
In an electrical storm some lightning hit a power pole. Out of the base of the pole he said a ball of lightning about the size of a mini-mina formed up and rolled along the grassy kerb until it reached the next power pole and then it just got sucked into the power pole. He said it moved about walking pace and was sort of translucent. Not quite enough to see through. He said when he checked later, the 2nd power pole had one of those earthing rods on it.

No photos, so I guess it didn't happen. :?

[dUg]

Wow! Some pretty cool stuff described here. I knew nothing of Salty's Norwegian "Spiral UFO", but I'd have to say watching the video footage it does seem consistent with an out of control missile getting the self-destruct treatment ( ever wonder what happens when the self-destruct mechanism self-destructs? surely it has to be the most over-engineered component in any rocket powered projectile! ).

Oddap's clouds and waterspouts looked awsome, I have seen similar here - and waterspouts back in July out in the gulf. I've got video and pics... must dig them out. Also have some vid of a roll cloud somewhere.

The ball lightning I saw was about the size of a basketball, blue in colour, with sparks visibly flying off it. Time was around 6:30am on a clear day, Springtime, and it travelled from West to East ( e.g. toward the rising sun ) at pretty high speed at about chest height. What really amazed me was that it appeared to alter its path slightly to clear an electric fence a few meteres from my window... before disappearing into a neighbouring paddock. My dad has seen it several times while flying Navex's at night over 20 odd years.

I think at this stage though SASurfer's in front with his Moonbow. They must be EXTREMELY rare... and that would have been awsome to see.

[puurri]

Anyone care to do some mathematical projections?