[NewCandle] Sichuan earthquake lights explained

[Horace Heffner]

On Jun 12, 2008, at 4:49 PM, Keith Nagel wrote:

> Jones mentions these earthquake light clips on the utube.
>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=1IHoZoAVLo0
>
> You'll notice that in several of the clips, where ground features
> were photographed, that cell antenna, telephone poles, and other
> needle emitter shaped objects are present that roughly correlate
> to the discharge effect above. I suspect the whole of the
> ground is being raised to a large DC value w/ respect to the
> air above and causing charged particle emission from the
> tips of those emitters. The air display is the ionization due
> to that focused beam emission. I'm so glad someone has
> documented this phenomena; it's been reported anecdotally for
> some time but I've never seen photographic evidence.
>
> K.


Looks like a sun dog effect to me.  I expect the sun angle to the  
clouds is 22 degrees, and the sun is just rising and possibly just  
below the horizon with respect to the photographer. This kind of  
thing is common in northern latitudes, a little odd for that far  
south.  It is due to sunlight reflecting off ice crystals in cirrus  
clouds.   For some not so great examples see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog

Best regards,

Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/