Sprites are just a POSSIBLE explanation for a SMALL part of the UFO phenomena:
in general, Luminous Transient Phenomena in the Atmosphere (LTPA) ARE actually mistaken for UFOs, but this is very far from having found the Rosetta
Stone of all the UFOs sightings just because a scientist shares what he knows about sprites (which ones, btw?): is simply as laughable as to claim
that something in a video is an alien spacecraft because nothing else comes to mind: the rest of the gallery can't even be taken seriously, they
could at least have put some efforts more and show to the people how a blimp may look strange, how an airplane does, with some serious example of some
blimp actually mistaken for an ufo, i mean like the one of Salt Lake City, for example: the gallery is, honestly, good for a laugh, and i believe that
every ATSer would be able to do much better. Sprites are a REAL explanation to a very narrow part of the phenomena in question: are, for example, Long
lived plasmas, Unconventional plasmas mentioned in the article? How about St. Elmo's fires? And Earth lights? And Transient Luminous Events (to NOT
be mistaken with Transient Lunar Phenomena)? I would also know his take about stuff like seismic precursors, Sonoluminescence, Speleolights, Ignes
fatui etc....
Sprites,
Red Sprites,
Blue jets,
Giant jets,
Elves,
Ball Lightnings,
Atmospheric electricity,
Earth lights,
Earthquake lights,
Hessdalen Phenomena (animation)
Ignes fatui, (artist rendition)
Plasma,
Mountain peaks luminosity,
Noctilucent clouds,
St. Elmo's fires,
Transient Lunar Phenomena,
MANY of these phenomena themselves has yet to be explained and need BADLY to be studied: some of them are still classified as "legends" despite
there are tons of witnesses (and evidences) about them, not to mention that many of them can and have been mistaken as UFOs:
perhaps it would be a great idea to start studing ALL the LTPA and to provide an explanation to them, before than trying to explain a phenomenon which
has so many different ways to show itself in such a way: yes, a possible explanation to UFOs: to the 0,003 of them
win.ciph-soso.net...
[edit on 24/2/2009 by internos]