Posted on 05/20/2005 9:46:07 AM PDT by quidnunc
and the jet stream could account for the "narrow" band and high density across such a distance.
The notion of a large space rock on an as yet unexplained elliptical is a scary one ... things tend to go round and round, or ellipse and ellipse, if you know what I mean.
I would have to disagree because there was a huge forest fire in Pennsylvania and possibly Virgina in the early '90s. and although we are on the NWCentral part of Ohio which was hundreds of miles west of the fire, the wind blew the smoke into our area. It was a very windy day and I was at a grocery store when people first saw what looked like fog blowing in but it was a yellowish gray and then the street lights came on in midmorning. It wasn't too long before we could not see the cars in the parking log. We could smell the smoke and I remember it well because I have asthma. People had trouble driving because there was very little visibility. In 1994, I was doing historical research in Pennsylvania for a dig and I think we were about halfway through the state when the archaeologist pointed out to me the area that had been devastated by that fire.
I'm curious about the volcano explanation though, seeing what others have written here. If a volcanic eruption, perhaps there are other sources (Russian? French? English?) regarding the coincident eruption of Aniakchak (in Alaska) or even St Helens.
New England's Darkest Day (another source)
http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm360441.html
a volcano In new england?
Meteor strike to the west?
When you get it figured out, give me a ping.
No matches.Volcanoes of the World » Which volcanoes were erupting during 1780?
Which volcanoes were erupting during 1780?
There were 16 volcanoes that had confirmed eruptions during this time.
Volcano Country / Location Eruption Start Date Eruption Stop Date
Colima México 1780 Nov 26 Unknown Aoga-shima Japan 1780 Jul 27 1785 May (?) Etna Italy 1780 Apr 20 1780 Jun Kita-Iwo-jima Japan 1780 Unknown Kolokol Group Russia 1780 ± 10 years Unknown Salak Indonesia 1780 Unknown Guntur Indonesia 1780 Unknown Vulcano Italy 1780 Unknown Villarrica Chile 1780 Unknown Yucamane Perú 1780 Unknown Sakura-jima Japan 1779 Nov 8 1781 May Yasur Vanuatu 1774 (in or before) 2005 (continuing) Aso Japan 1772 1780 Pavlof Sister United States 1762 1786 Sangay Ecuador 1728 Sep 30 ± 30 days 1916 (in or before) Stromboli Italy 1558 (in or before) 1857
Please note that eruption data are updated annually. Select a volcano and look under the Activity Reports section for more recent eruptive information published in the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network. This query does not yet account for uncertainty in the eruption date that may bring an eruption into the selected period.
ah.
A volcano 10,000 miles away could produce a cloud that could (at high altitude) travel around the world.
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There is a suggestion that smoke from forest fires could have been the cause. It has been said that fires were burning to the north. But to blanket the entire area with smog so thick as to blot out the sun and the moon would have required a fire that gave even Hell a run for its money. Nor would it just appear for twenty-four hours and vanish. What's more, a fire of that magnitude would have left traces in the backwoods. But no such trace seems to exist... The sooty fallout seems to add fuel to the forest-fire suggestion, but the smells described do not. The pungent odor that comes from coal burning is sulfur. What's more, malt houses and brewing equipment have long been sanitized with sulfur compounds, so perhaps what the good doctor remembered was a nasty nose-full of sulfur dioxide. By contrast, there's no evidence of even a whiff of smoke from a forest fire. No one in New England that day complained that the smell of wood smoke was everywhere... Could the Mysterious Darkness of May 19, 1780, have been the result of smoke from a volcanic explosion? ...at the other side of the North American continent, the west coast Cascade Range still has active volcanoes... According to the United States Geological Service, and some native legends, Glacier Peak last blew its top "sometime in the middle of the eighteenth century." The exact date is a mystery... But the year of 1780 is in the ball park.
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While the story speaks of our western states volcanic activity, there is actually much more of that in Alaska. Perhaps that could be the source of this darkness.
There is an extensive description of the Laki Fissure event in this FR post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1407171/posts?page=22
The great darkness that occurred in New England occurred only 3 years earlier in 1780.
damn....... can’t be sure but I think I’m having deja vue all over again
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