"I couldn't see the discharge with my own eyes, but it showed up clear and bright on the film when I developed it," the astronomer was originally published as saying. But the Chronicle has clarified that the device is indeed a Nikon 880 digital camera which has no need of film to be developed."
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SFO Chron: "clarified" -- as in, "We reported it wrong the first time -- actually the guy didn't say anything about 'film' at all...
So...we were working with bum data -- courtesy of sloppy reporting that tried to sensationalize a probable camera glitch.
At least I now understand why NASA thought it necessary to fly the guy's camera back to Houston on a T-38.
I do appreciate that WND went to the trouble to re-post it with a picture of the (supposedly) correct camera. Wonder if that means that someone at WND watches our threads here on FR -- or is even an active FReeper?
And thanks to all of you for sticking with this thing until we were able to arrive at a single, rational, probable explanation!