Possible Explanation of Hessdalen Lights?

Came across an article today on the mysterious lights occurring in Hessdalen Valley of Norway. Apparently on a cold, dark Norwegian night about a dozen times a year, you might see this:

Sometimes the lights are as big as cars and can float around for up to 2 hours. Other times they zip down the valley before suddenly fading away. Then there are the blue and white flashes that come and go in the blink of an eye, and daytime sightings that look like metallic objects in the sky.

Pretty cool huh? Scientists now say that they may know why the phenomena occurs. The geology of the valley acts as a giant battery.

The unique geology of the valley could be responsible for this plasma. The valley is formed by rocks on one side rich in copper and the other rich in iron and zinc—not unlike the cathode and anode of a battery. Sulfuric acid, leached from the abandoned sulfur mine at the bottom of the valley, could then turn the river into the weak acid of an electrolyte. But where does the charge to energize plasma come from?

The Hessdalen phenomenon seems especially common after a display of Northern Lights when solar wind ionizes the earth's atmosphere. It's an interesting hypothesis to be sure, but just like the author, I find a valley acting as a giant battery being charged by solar winds 90 million miles away more amazing than aliens.

You can read the full article if you have a subscription to the New Scientist here

Could geology & solar winds be responsible for other UFO hotbed areas around the world?

Interesting idea, it's hard to see how this could be a plasma ball though.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

This part here,

and daytime sightings that look like metallic objects in the sky

is very interesting. Could this be an explanation for ufo's?

a reply to: SecretKnowledge

Could this be an explanation for ufo's?


Or, an attempt at disinformation regarding ufo's..?

Perhaps someone with a subscription to New Scientist can answer my question.
What happens if an observer moves closer to the lights?

I am interested in Hessdalen since I first heard of it, a few years back.
I remember a common theory for the lights were the resources and mines arround the valley, so nothing new, but still not proven.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

This phenomenon sounds really interesting I had heard of it but didn't know about the sighting of metallic looking objects during the day, that's got me interested in this.

The only problem with the giant battery theory I can see, is that if a single leclanche style cell is formed, it would have a potential difference of around 1.5 volts !

You might get a useful current though..

It's an interesting theory, but still completely unproven. It doesn't account for a lot of things, such as why any kind of accumulated electrical charge would discharge so slowly and at specific points. If you have a large battery or capacitor, and you provide it with a circuit, it's going to spark out almost instantly without a lot of resistance. What would cause the resistance?

I would just as soon theorize that there is a point nearby created by the subsurface topography or something that allows bits of antimatter or clusters of subatomic particles to float through from other dimensions. Something that would create a kind of glowing miniature event horizon that would eventually decay and fade away.

I don't know.

originally posted by: korkythecat
The only problem with the giant battery theory I can see, is that if a single leclanche style cell is formed, it would have a potential difference of around 1.5 volts !

Agreed that is a very low voltage, and while it's well known that higher voltages can create atmospheric plasma, I'm not sure how it could happen with only 1.5 volts. Also some characteristics of the phenomenon like the fact it can hang around a while, don't seem consistent with what little we know about ball lightning being relatively short-lived.

I have seen very similar lights in the Texas hill country. There is a lot of quartz granite and flowing water. I'm curious what the geological conditions are in this area. These lights don't seem to behave the way one would expect a craft to behave.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

And another mystery about to be solved! Hail to all human-brains!
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

Interesting theory, but I don't buy it simply because in this thread, www.abovetopsecret.com... Matty Beckerman describes the same type of lights at Brown Mountain, NC. He said the lights have been known to chase people in their cars as they fled. They seem to have an intelligence about them.

I did view the video and the motion of the orb seems to be that it kept rising and floating towards a distant horizon while apparently maintaining Its altitude until it faded into the distance...

I contend the orb only 'appeared to travel' to a distant horizon---I think the orb was confined to a pretty narrow corridor in which it moved directly above & in the limits this valley

just like in the NC Brown Mountain lights, a designed placement of cameras which are tripped by a passing light source are needed to precisely track these floating orbs and observe them from more than one vantage point at a time

originally posted by: freelance_zenarchist
Perhaps someone with a subscription to New Scientist can answer my question.
What happens if an observer moves closer to the lights?

Some guy touched one of the Brown Mountain lights and he got an electrical shock. I think it burned the part of his skin that made contact, but I'm not sure about that.