I want to be excited, but I am having a hard time understanding what exactly is going on here. I read the article, but maybe I read it wrong because I still do not understand what they are sayin. If anyone can explain the significance of this in English, Id be happy to hear it.

Perhaps this explains a lightning explosion the night before last here in Vancouver.

MASSIVE blast of thunder, at the same time as a bolt of light bright enough to cut through my eyelids as I am asleep goes off. House shook like a bomb went off above it.

But no other strikes. No other thunder. Just this singular, massive, thunderous blast. Roomate from Texas was shaken, had never seen anything like it.

Myself, I thought they had nuked the city or something. It was bizarre.

Er.. wait a minute.. I'm with the guy above who doesn't really understand this or think it's not very clear about what they are exactly saying.

The anti matter in this lightning.. wouldn't it make contact with matter in the air and thus go Boom having matter and anti matter mix.. and wouldn't such a big lightening strike have annihilated this planet long ago? Or is this such a tiny amount it only makes a little boom? Er.. O.k. I feel like a dummy now though I admit Physics is not my strong suit.

I'm a layman in physics as well, but as far as I understand, this will be one of the most important discoveries in a very long time!

Ummm... This is something that people who study this sort of thing have really only thought existed at a theoretical level. It is on par with some of the most violent energetic exchanges known to exist in the universe, as far as I can tell.

No wonder those UFOs hover over our electrical storms. It is fuel.

If true this is a profound discovery.

The thing is, I'm thinking that explaining it will be the tricky part, but if I were to guess this is what happens when parallel universes "collide".

What you are seeing is an anti particle meeting with and annihilating a physical particle.

This will also cause more forward thinking scientists to reevaluate their ideas on intelligent life covering extreme distances through space.

Correction - It appears they had already evidenced antimatter elsewhere.

[edit on 11-11-2009 by JayinAR]

No wonder aliens buzz around lightning storms

WOW!

Field reversals and antimatter production?
So much for the thunder being caused by a temporary vacuum collapsing.
How long before we can produce the same effects in a generator?

WOW!

Very cool news indeed! It will be interesting to see how they intend of harvesting it. Will it be put to good use... like powering the earth... or will they just bang it on a warhead. Something tells me the later is more likely to be true.

I can only hope now that they find antimoron!

IRM

Originally posted by D.E.M.
Perhaps this explains a lightning explosion the night before last here in Vancouver.

MASSIVE blast of thunder, at the same time as a bolt of light bright enough to cut through my eyelids as I am asleep goes off. House shook like a bomb went off above it.

But no other strikes. No other thunder. Just this singular, massive, thunderous blast. Roomate from Texas was shaken, had never seen anything like it.

Myself, I thought they had nuked the city or something. It was bizarre.

All you gottta do is live in the tropics for one wet season and you will get these. They usually occur through whats known as a pulse strom, which builds suer fast in a matter of minutes, causes a bit of havoc, and then dissapears as quickly as it appeared. Occasionally you only get one or two claps of thunder out of them

Hope that makes a bit of sense

This is fascinating, great thread.

If I remember correctly, there is a video here on ATS of a guy speaking on how extraterrestrial crafts work and why they emit light in completely darkness. He compared it to the lightning in storms.

(Also, if any has seen the movie The Golden Compass, there is a scene where the zeppelin is harvesting lightning)

So these would differ from Sprites and Jets im guessing, or would it be caused by them? Pretty cool though either way.

Cars running on water with boosted sparks and (often) modified sparkplugs at high frequencies make a cold spark, seemingly doing the whole 'vacuum/ZPE/implosion' energy dance. I'd hedge a bet it's the same stuff millions of times larger occuring in the air above us. I'd also bet an antimatter implosion would reverse the field of the spark too...