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Strange Video of Dancing Cloud Explained By Electric Discharge
The Bad Astronomer writes "A few months ago I was sent a really weird video showing a cloud snapping around suddenly, far faster than wind could explain. I asked a meteorologist about it, who told me it was due to ice crystals re-aligning when the cloud's electric field discharged. It's pretty amazing to watch, and a great example of how many cool things happen right in front of us that we never notice."
Ummm Last Post
Sounds like the basis for an awesome mythbusters episode:
"And now, Jaime will attempt to discharge a storm cloud using this kite!"
Damn holo-projecter is gone again...
Now all we have to do is figure out why the aliens are causing electric discharges and we can call this mystery solved!
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
It's a glitch in the matrix!
Speaking as someone who took a couple meteorology courses in college, I can confirm the Bad Astronomer's observation: it is weird.
The Admin and the Engineer
Thank you! Someone needs to sock it to those space nutters.
if it was a natural phenomenon, it should have happened before elsewhere, and it should have happened again.
i love how scholastisizm in academia got to a level of 'explaining' things without doing ANY research or experiment these days.
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I'm afraid to say that it is a glitch in the Matrix.
It doesn't look like part of the cloud to me, the brightness and tint isn't quite right. It looks more like a reflection, as if there were glass between the camera and the sky, with something in the foreground reflecting at just the right place to make it look like part of the cloud.
That's just what those weather controlling, HARP using, economy crashing, illuminati would say.
Where's your account?
This may be the ground observation of Sprite Lightning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning)
"We'll cross the minefield under the cover of daylight..." -A. Rimmer
Having an account won't change the basic facts that are stacked against the Space Nutters. There will never be space colonies, McDonald's on the Moon or asteroid mining, or a weekend retreat at the Mars bungalow. Anyone with two eyes drilled into his head and an IQ over 80 should be able to understand this.
But keep fucking that chicken you delusional retards, I'm laughing at you every single day!
The Earth is not a mud ball, it's not "this rock". If it is, well, the other planets aren't even mud balls! Too hot! Too dry! Not even solid! Never mind there's no magnetosphere or atmosphere.... You could only wish they are as nice a rock as the Earth. They aren't.
I'm sorry the feverishly delirious promises of the Space Age were.... overly optimistic, let's put it this way. I'm sorry you feel it's the species' destiny to fly out on magical rockets and live happily ever after on fantasy planets with suburbs and cars. I'm sorry you mistook sci-fi for reality. The same lunatics who thought computers would still fill basements in 500 years but thought we'd have FTL ships aren't exactly the great prophets of the future after all, huh?
My first thought was that it was some disturbance in the air between the photographer and the clouds causing diffraction that made the cloud appear to warp, but the ice crystal explanation seems to fit the picture better. It does remind me of pictures I've seen of ice halos - but I never heard they could "move" like that.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
I think it was the virgin Mary getting jiggy with it.
There are new discoveries everyday. The day will come when we can cross stellar distances as easy as we now cross an ocean, Of that I have no doubt. Maybe not in my lifetime or my children's or even great grand children. But someday it will happen. How do I know this? All you have to do is look from where we have come. Each society in history has thought they knew all there is to know about the universe. We are not different I laugh in the face of any one who is pompous and arrogant enough to say It is impossible. What kind of hubris does it take to say "No, it’s impossible, the distances are too great”. Bullshit! We are only beginning to understand the physics of the universe, and we already know that there is at least one thing that is faster than light. Quantum entanglement is instantaneous no matter the distance. Although we have not yet figured a way to exploit this for FTL communications or travel, there is a some mechanism in the universe that underlies the observed results. There are many scientists working with Quantum entanglement, even as I write this. I even believe we will see FTL communications in my lifetime, and I am 48. But aside form communications, there are many other theories at the edge of our understanding that may open up space to easy travel someday. Warp Drive? No, we can't make it work yet, but what about in a hundred or a thousand years? Howe about Worm Holes? No, once again, not yet. But someday. And what other secrets are out there waiting to be discovered? We must keep trying. We must keep pushing, just as the great inventors before us did.
Clearly, this is just a glitch in The Matrix.
especially as it looks like repeated patterns.
He goes by Quantum Apostrophe on other sites, but Slashdot's karma system makes having an account impractical for him...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
As suggested by a comment to the video, it appears to be some water on top of a piece of glass in front of the camera, being blown around.
I watch thunderstorms very closely. 2 summers ago I saw a thunderstorm over my hometown of Baltimore and saw exactly this kind of behavior. It was like the entire side of the cloud tower suddenly bent and twisted around. It looked impossibly huge and fast moving at the time, like a huge piece of sheet metal snapping around suddenly. It definitely smacked of some kind of electrical related effect. Very cool to see this confirmed.
I've seen better fakes on ghost hunting shows.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Ok will thats it for UFOs - or rather Flying Saucers - then. Between Weather Baloons, Satellites, Spy Planes, Roll Clouds, Saucer Clouds, Ball Lightning, Atmospheric Lensing, Will O The Wisps (called Minmins in Australia) and just plain good ole Prankstering, I can't really see any place for the aliens to hide anymore.
"In 2034, femtotech technology finally betrayed the presence of alien probes at the molecular level. But of course by that time we were already receiving email bulletins from them and planning to visit them in the summer anyway."
Why the fuck do people record video on their phone in the vertical position? There are so many cases of this.. morons.
There was a rather large field campaign called The Severe Thunderstorm Electrification and Precipitation Study (STEPS) to study electrification done around the year 2000 that involved the use of polarimetric weather radar to observe electrified storms, in conjunction with the New Mexico Tech Lightning Monitoring Array (LMA).
One of the nice things about polarimetric radar is the ability to measure the aggregate orientation of particles, including ice crystals. When scanning active electrified storms, the radars observed polarimetric signatures indicating increased vertical orientation of particles aloft (ice crystals), which then suddenly snapped back to roughly random orientation. This event corresponded well with measurements from the LMA. In other words, they could, using radar, predict lightning strikes. I love science!
Yep, ice crystals aligning to an electric field... GENERATE BY THE ALIEN SHIP!
I'd be curious to know if this would have any effect on an aircraft passing through the area.
I see. You're defining "natural" jargonistically, rather than for everyday (or even casual philosophical) conversation. For a second there I thought you were being philosophical.
http://xkcd.com/645/