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Some Bay Area Residents Report Mysterious Flashes In The Sky During Napa Quake
sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com ^ | August 27, 2014 12:11 AM | Betty Yu

Posted on 08/27/2014 6:24:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin

MOUNTAIN VIEW (KPIX 5) – Several people called the KPIX 5 newsroom after Sunday morning’s magnitude 6.0 earthquake in Napa, reporting mysterious flashes of light in the sky. Witnesses said the strange phenomenon looked like lightning.

Similar flashes of light have been reported in earthquakes around the world, from Japan to Peru

Friedemann Freund, a scientist with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, said the same thing happened during Sunday morning’s earthquake. And it wasn’t a transformer blowing up or UFOs.

“What they are, are a consequence of the stresses building up deep below the earth, seven miles like in the case of the Napa Valley earthquake,” Freund told KPIX 5.

He calls the phenomenon “earthquake lights,” the quick buildup of stress that causes an electric current to flow to the surface and burst through the earth. This typically happens before or during an earthquake.

Several North Bay witnesses contacted Freund at the SETI Institute about seeing several flashes around the time the Napa quake hit. They said there was one or two seconds between each one.


TOPICS: Weird Stuff
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Transformers blowing?
1 posted on 08/27/2014 6:24:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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Comment #2 Removed by Moderator

To: BenLurkin

Piezoelectric phenomenon?


3 posted on 08/27/2014 6:27:23 PM PDT by HangnJudge
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To: BenLurkin

LSD flashbacks?


4 posted on 08/27/2014 6:28:21 PM PDT by Michael.SF. (It takes a gun to feed a village)
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To: BenLurkin

I know very little about earthquakes but I am sure I have read somewhere that they often cause that phenomena.


5 posted on 08/27/2014 6:31:12 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8: verses 38 and 39. "For I am persuaded".)
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To: BenLurkin

Try again:

I’m not sure it means anything, but what if it does?


6 posted on 08/27/2014 6:31:17 PM PDT by BobL
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To: BenLurkin

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light


7 posted on 08/27/2014 6:35:34 PM PDT by HangnJudge
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To: BenLurkin

There are lots of reports from Japan about this. If you crush rock in s press, you get flashes of light. My best guess is triboelectricity or a piezoelectric effect.


8 posted on 08/27/2014 6:39:16 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: HangnJudge

Yup.. piezoelectric effect, quartz when compressed or stressed can cause a discharge, sounds similar to a St Elmo like event


9 posted on 08/27/2014 6:39:43 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi - Revolution is a'brewin!!!)
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To: BenLurkin
"Green flashes, not associated with lightning" is something sometimes heard on storm-spotter nets. High winds or other disturbances can cause transformers to blow up when they get beat nearly to death from debris or hitting the ground.

So that's a valid observation.

/johnny

10 posted on 08/27/2014 6:40:59 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: NormsRevenge

/johnny

11 posted on 08/27/2014 6:45:55 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: BenLurkin

The first time I ever heard of this earthquake and blasts of light phenomenon was while reading about the Shroud of Turin. It was suggested as one possible explanation for how the image got on the cloth.


12 posted on 08/27/2014 6:47:54 PM PDT by HandyDandy (Started out with Burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff....)
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To: BenLurkin
And it wasn’t a transformer blowing up or UFOs.

This sentence puts UFO's on the same possibility scale as transformers blowing up.

By the way - transformers don't blow up - they just die.


13 posted on 08/27/2014 6:52:44 PM PDT by capydick (''Life's tough.......it's even tougher if you're stupid.'')
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To: BenLurkin

“Transformers blowing?

Exactly. I saw a guy being interviewed on TV and he reported watching the transfromers blow up around town.


14 posted on 08/27/2014 6:57:10 PM PDT by Parley Baer
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To: HangnJudge

“Piezoelectric phenomenon?”

I think that is basically what it is. I heard about this from relatives who were in a large one around Eureka CA around 1980


15 posted on 08/27/2014 7:01:56 PM PDT by Figment
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To: BenLurkin

It seems to me that all of that rock rubbing against each other would cause massive static electricity build-up between the Earth and the atmosphere. Seems almost like common sense to me.


16 posted on 08/27/2014 7:11:57 PM PDT by spel_grammer_an_punct_polise (Why does every totalitarian political hack think that he knows how to run my life better than I do?)
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To: HangnJudge

Almost certainly a piezoelectric or triboelectric phenomenon.


17 posted on 08/27/2014 7:33:36 PM PDT by backwoods-engineer (Blog: www.BackwoodsEngineer.com)
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To: BenLurkin

Blowing their Depends?

If they were ready for the end it wouldn’t frighten them so much.


18 posted on 08/27/2014 7:37:26 PM PDT by x1stcav (Leftism is like rust. It corrodes twenty-four hous a day.)
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To: Parley Baer

During the Northridge quake, I was at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory high on a mountain overlooking the entire San Fernando Valley watching it all unfold. There were transformers blowing up every place you looked.


19 posted on 08/27/2014 7:39:18 PM PDT by fidelis (Zonie and USAF Cold Warrior)
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To: BenLurkin

HAARP. Well, maybe. There has been a lot of speculation about this device. And some folks have witnessed the lights from it. There were flashes of lights in China a couple of years ago the night before an 8 magnitude earthquake, and some reported lights before the 9 magnitude in Chili a few years ago.


20 posted on 08/27/2014 7:45:26 PM PDT by realcleanguy
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