Ultra-rare lightning

**Chogy** · 27 Dec 11,, 14:44

I feel lucky and priveleged to have witnessed one of the rarest weather phenomenons known to man. It happened on the 22nd and I didn't even know what it was until I did a bit of research.

After decades in the air, I thought I had seen it all. We were approaching Panama City at night, and a potent thunderstorm was brewing over the mountains that contain moist air driven in from the Pacific.

At night, thunderstorms are an awesome sight... they glow, flicker and grumble in a spectacular show. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something, and my first thought was "Oh s**t, a giant meteor had just re-entered and hit the ground in an explosion." A bar of solid yellow extended literally from outer space and connected to the TOP of the thunderstorm.

We watched for a repeat, and got it one more time. It's simply unthinkable for anything to be ejected from the TOP of a storm; it all goes to the sides and down. And these plasma shafts were not small, they appeared to extend to 200,000' or more, and I bas this on the height of the thunderstorm, which was at least 40,000 feet.

The best picture I could find on the internet - looked something like this, although this one is actually a bit whimpy.

These "blue jets" or "superjet lightning" weren't even known to science until the 1990's, although they have certainly been around forever.

**tankie** · 27 Dec 11,, 15:13

Originally Posted by Chogy

After decades in the air, I thought I had seen it all.

The best is yet to come Chogy

**Chogy** · 27 Dec 11,, 15:46

Originally Posted by tankie

The best is yet to come Chogy

I HAVE been looking! I love night flying. At 40,000' we get a night sky that star-gazers would kill to see. 80% of the atmosphere below us. The stars POP and the milky way is a solid band of light.

**tankie** · 27 Dec 11,, 15:54

Originally Posted by Chogy

I HAVE been looking! I love night flying. At 40,000' we get a night sky that star-gazers would kill to see. 80% of the atmosphere below us. The stars POP and the milky way is a solid band of light.

drool drool

**Parihaka** · 27 Dec 11,, 17:48

Red sprites and blue jets

Chogy, very jealous.

**Chogy** · 28 Dec 11,, 13:45

As I mentioned, 20+ years of staring at and being intimate (sometimes too much so) various types of WX. It blew our minds, quite honestly. It was like seeing a cow fly by, or the dude in his lawn chair + helium balloons. I doubt I'll ever see another. If I were to guess, some very specific parameters have to be met before these oddities pop up... certain temperatures, relative humidity, rising terrain, temperature differential between upper and lower atmosphere, possibly even some force from outer space, such as the upper stratosphere being primed with cosmic rays. Who knows?

When you have a natural phenomenon so rare, so difficult to observe, scientists may never be able to determine the mechanics of it.

About the only other weirdness I have yet to see is any sort of ball lightning. I've read about it, but never seen it. St. Elmo's fire, a close cousin, is very common and always a good show. Unfortunately when you get it, it means you are too close to precipitation, and are in danger of flying into a thunderstorm.

One last thing I've always wanted to see... a meteor of sufficient mass so that we can see it strike the ground with some sort of effect. Nothing big enough to hurt anybody, but a rock the size of a Volkswagen slamming into the Atlantic would be impressive.

**ArmchairGeneral** · 29 Dec 11,, 02:11

Awesome. I had no idea thunderstorms had effects that high in the atmosphere.

**Bigfella** · 29 Dec 11,, 03:07

Awesome Chogy. A great priviledge to see such a remarkable aspect of nature in all its grandeur.

**Chogy** · 13 Jan 12,, 17:08

Update on this thing - did a bit of poking around, came up with this:

Thunderstorms Make Antimatter

I am wondering now if I saw some sort of gamma ray event, or something besides lightning. What I saw was close but not totally smiliar to the "ble jet" events. It was amber, not blue, and quite wide. And it really looked like more of a plasma stream than a crackling lightning bolt.

So now Thunderstorms make anti-matter and gamma rays! Who would have thought that a terrestrial event could make EMR of such vast energies!

**Repatriated Canuck** · 17 Jan 12,, 16:11

I just saw a show on TV about this!

Chogy have you ever seen a UFO up there?

**Chogy** · 18 Jan 12,, 14:51

No, the weirdest thing I've seen besides this lightning was a blinking "star." Allow me to explain...

I was looking skyward one night maybe an hour after sunset, and I noticed one of the stars was blinking. Not twinkling, but literally turning on and off at maybe 2 hertz. And it was totally static, not moving relative to the real stars. The best explanation we could come up with was a very large satellite in geosynchronous orbit that was rotating out of control. Big solar panels were reflecting the sunlight to our eyes as the object rotated.

If it was in a lower orbit, it would have moved relative to the background stars.

**Repatriated Canuck** · 18 Jan 12,, 15:55

Oh cool. I saw a satellite look right at me not long ago here in Yellowknife. I assume it was looking my way because it was a tiny speck moving across the night when it flashed very bright. I would guess that the lens or some part of it would have to be reflecting light almost directly at me from an orbital altitude for me to see a flash. I see satellites moving all the time but have never seen that before. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the explanation for the flash of light that makes sense to me.

Have any pilots you worked with seen a UFO? I'm fishing for a story here.

**Chogy** · 18 Jan 12,, 16:05

I've never encountered one with a story, and I've flown with hundreds of men, each with a career decades long. And we'd tell the story, no doubt... the days of "They'd lock me up as a kook" are long gone.

There is ONE story - a group of pilotsw checked into a hotel for a layover, and there was a UFO convention going on. They were cornered by UFO types who insisted they "spill their guts. come on, tell us what you've seen." When told "None of us has ever seen a thing", they replied "We KNOW that the government tells you to say that. It's OK, you can tell us." They simply wouldn't believe no one has ever seen anything!

**Repatriated Canuck** · 18 Jan 12,, 16:09

I think there could be UFO's out there but come on, no government could bottle it up as well as the tinfoil hats think.

I still liked your story.

For the next story what's the scariest thing that happened to you while flying?

I had a really scary landing once, the a/c hit the ground with a bang and I bet if I had been slouching I would have hurt my back. It was in the Western Australian desert and it was stormy and a really rough approach bouncing and abrupt rolls. It was very warm and humid too which might have been a cause for the rough air? I wasn't looking out the window but I'd bet we where coming in with a lot of rudder! All of us passengers where sitting up straight giving each other nervous looks. Big grins all around when we where rolling along safely.