Weather Eye: mystery of 'UFO attack' on turbine

The Times ^ | January 23, 2009 | Paul Simons

[rmarley]

A wind turbine in Lincolnshire has had a 65ft-long blade mysteriously wrecked (report, January 8). Strange lights were seen before the damage was discovered, leading to claims that UFOs were involved. However, a nearby fireworks party could explain these. The owners of the turbine, Ecotricity, continue to investigate the possibility of metal fatigue causing the damage, or perhaps a large piece of ice falling from a passing plane. Two cases of falling chunks of ice were reported this week. On Monday a house in New Malden, Surrey, was hit by a large ice block that made a 6ft hole in the roof. One neighbour described the sound of the crash “like a field gun being fired”, and another witness thought that a gas boiler had exploded. Huge chunks of ice were left scattered over the roof. And on Tuesday a woman in Guernsey heard the sound of ice chunks crashing into her greenhouse when she herself was struck by a piece of ice. Large shards of ice about 2in thick, and smooth on one side, were found strewn on the ground. These were nothing like hailstones. In both cases the chunks of ice could have fallen off aircraft, during wintry showers. However, not all large pieces of ice fall from aircraft. The greatest recorded fall of ice was at Ord, near Inverness, in 1849, well before aircraft were invented, and The Times reported that it was some 20 feet across and weighed an estimated half a tonne.

[bethybabes69]

These generators are less than a mile from my Mum's house, and the Engineers have been secretly talking to all the locals, and I can tell you that, there are a mass of missing parts, over 40ft of one blade isn't on the site.

Ecotricity are saying they've "Sent the damaged rotor to Germany for forensic testing", nope, they've sent the 'parts' of the damaged rotor for testing, the rest of it is stuck in the vehicle that smashed into it.

Get Will Smith and the MIB over here post haste, and tell them to bring tat black transformer car too.

[DISCO]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! News Alert: Republicans do nothing as the sky is falling!

[Las Vegas Dave]

Two new freepers from the UK who signed up about two weeks apart? Are you really one freeper with two screen names?

IBTZ

[bethybabes69]

Where did that come from? I have one FR account, any other’s are nothing whatsoever to do with me.

[gondramB]

While I don't think this is breaking news since it was almost 2 weeks ago, it does look like a blade broke off the turbine.



I would, however, think that there are simpler explanations than aliens - like metal fatigue, sabotage, hoax and who knows what else... cool picture though.

[Tainan]

LVD whatever are you on about?

Beg pardon folks. Instances such as this are referred to as "Pre-Mature E-Zot-U-Lation".

Pay it no mind. All the best in the New Year.

[Recovering Hermit]

No problem.

Just get a few heavy-duty diesel-powered trucks with boom lifts and they can fix it right up.

They might need some Jet A fuel powered helicopters to do an airlift of replacement parts as well.

[bethybabes69]

There are probably more sensible explanations than UFO's.
The immediate area is saturated with RAF bases, SEE HERE, with Scampton, Conningsby and Waddington being major active bases, (with lots of USA personnel).

One can sit on my Mum's back garden watching them fly over the beaches at a few hundred feet above the water on training exercises, which is very impressive (my two Boys love watching).

So, it's near totally probable that this was a military accident (hence my satirical comment at the end of my post), nevertheless, there was an incredible scramble to clear something up, and that rotor was not on site when the clear up began.

[DainBramage]

LOL have you seen any of the youtube videos of these things coming apart? Its pretty explosive.

If one blade develops a crack or comes unbalanced they wobble under high wind conditions and sometimes disentigrate. Pretty impressive still.

[DollyCali]

UFO Ping

[bethybabes69]

I was trying to find some photo's of the windfarm, but they're buried somewhere.

Only one I can find is one when I was setting up my new Canon 1D, it's of the Northside of the windfarm, quite a few miles from the incident area though, but anyway I put it on my Facebook page Here

[bethybabes69]

Well, it seems there's no mystery at all, look HERE for an explanation.

[raybbr]

This is easy. The frequency of the of rotor created a false homing beacon and the UFO tried to land on it.

Sheesh, that wasn't so hard, was it?

[Road Warrior ‘04]

One of the drawbacks of wind power is it's interference in unfettered UFO travel.

[usmcobra]

Windmills and UFOs=Bug lights and Moths.

You read it here first, only on the Free Republic.

[bikerman]

It’s Obama’s fault

[bill1952]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ

[dangus]

I’m guessing metal fatigue. I’m also supposing that the as the blade started to bend, it caused the entire rotor to come off balance, resulting in a build up of electricity.

[dangus]

I’m guessing metal fatigue. I’m also supposing that the as the blade started to bend, it caused the entire rotor to come off balance, resulting in a build up of electricity.