Giant Flashes in the sky 4:43am UK

I hope this is the right place, if not please move as needed mods.

My wife woke me up this morning, I sleep on the couch most of the time as I suffer from cervicular spondylosis, basically arthritis is flooding my spine and crust a my spine at c6, c7 so beds are sometime awkward for me.

Anyway, my wife has been up recently on and off most of the night from the various flu like viruses going around, she spends most of the night awake especially from 3am onwards. The way she woke me up was that she was closing all the upper windows as she feared it was about to rain heavily, I asked her why she thought it was about to rain, she said there had been 3 huge flashes over abut 3 seconds where the entire sky lit up as if it was day so she was running to lock the windows in case of a storm.

I said to her but there's been no thunder so far?

She said she had not heard anything but the flashes must have been lightning and they were incredibly bright.

At this point I got up and looked out at the early morning sky, the sky was cloudless and the stars were bright as normal, this leads me to two things.

1. If there's no cloud to act as a projection screen then how did the entire sky manage to fill like day time?

2. If there's no clouds then where was the storm to produce the lightning?

and maybe a 3rd, if these flashes were indeed lightning and were that massive then where was the thunder?

Just a little overview of where we live, we live in Northolt in Ealing West London, our ground floor flat on the side the flashes came from looks out on 2 massive unbuilt on fields, ie there's no housing near us directly behind for about a mile, maybe a little less. We face on that side towards the East with Heathrow Terminal 5 to the right of us some miles in the distance. At about 4am onwards the long haul flights start to queue up to land across the sky in front of us. The lights face parallel to us ie not pointed at us.

Behind us not far away is RAF Northolt which we again get planes coming parallel to us landing and the odd chopper during the day.

I'm just wonder what made these massive flashes, big enough to frighten my wife who has no issues with storms. Did anyone else see them?

As we are on top of a hill I get a fair view across the horizon facing east towards London, if there's any fireworks (at 4:30am in the morning?) or events I can normally see any lasers or flood lights being projected on to the clouds but as I said it was cloudless when I looks out and only a matter of a minute after the flashes.

I make no claims as to know what made these 3 flashes but it certainly was strange...

And before there's any funny remarks, I'm nigh on 51 and my wife is 48, we don't smoke or do drugs and we had nothing to drink.

Thinking of the regular sorts of culprits to rule them out...

Does your wife ever have migraines by any chance?

I don't have an explanation, however I did see the same I think a few years back. it was exactly the way you describe, full lightup like day without clouds or thunder. I didn't give it much thought.

Maybe its some type of rare weather phenomena.

What color were the flashes? Very close lightening has always looked purple to me, while far off looks bluish white?

I've seen two flashes in my life that lit the entire sky, equally, with no apparent source or variation in intensity. Both in Texas. Once in Dallas and once in the middle of absolutely nowhere in the Panhandle of Texas. Trucking is what had me there, but the flashes I saw then were green. A vibrant green like the shade illustrators use for radioactive water and such...

oddest thing I've ever seen and I've never heard an explanation. I hope you get one for what your asking about.

reply to post by Mclaneinc


i've seen the flashes in the past. they are indeed beautiful to see yet i'm unsure as to their nature. many years of star gazing have positioned me into cherishing all anomalies seen.
f.

Righty, just asked my wife re the flashes.

No migraines...

The colour was an ultra bright yellow tinted flash..After pressing her she says the light was blindingly bright with what she thought was a yellowish tint but that could just be the eye responding to the sudden explosion of light?

I can say that from the sincerity of her voice at the time of the flashes she DID see something, what I have no clue but it is a little bit weird.

reply to post by Mclaneinc


I experienced something like this last night except i live in the southeast united States and it happened at about 10:30 pm but it was a clear night and the sky was flashing, i didnt see any lightning just the sky flashing and there was not any sound. Also i live in a very rural town so i know it wasnt lights from the city or anything. Im leaning towards meteor shower although i didnt actually SEE meteors.

reply to post by Mclaneinc


wow...funny you should mention the flashes cos yesterday in AU, the sunlight was incredibly bright, brighter than usual and I considered it may just be a result of a solar flare? I don't know much about flares so not sure.

It was just weird really, the sunlight seemed so bright, like a flash but lasted nearly all day. It was a bit scarey because it seemed like it would burst through to 'flash' at any moment. weird stuff, never noticed it before.

It was enough for me to stay inside though.

I've had random flashes off from my peripheral vision, always bluish white.

I first noticed one when sitting at the computer and I had the experience of a flash and though lightning was going on outside but all my curtains were closed so there is no way light could have gotten through the window.

Anyways just my two cents about random flashes.

this thread caught my attention as last night when I was in bed there was a hufge flash in the sky outside my bedroom window. (I didnt have the curtains shut) It was like just one side of the sky flashed white just for a second, I went to look out but there was nothing after that. I have absolulty no idea what caused it. It was was very bright almost blueish white. this was at aprox 10:30 pm on the south coast UK.

Originally posted by TheBloodRed
I've had random flashes off from my peripheral vision, always bluish white.

I first noticed one when sitting at the computer and I had the experience of a flash and though lightning was going on outside but all my curtains were closed so there is no way light could have gotten through the window.

Anyways just my two cents about random flashes.

Go see your doctor re the flashes, its treatable with a set of drops, often people get that or what seems like bits in their vision and seeing dark shadows move at the edge of sight.

Originally posted by serendipity59
this thread caught my attention as last night when I was in bed there was a hufge flash in the sky outside my bedroom window. (I didnt have the curtains shut) It was like just one side of the sky flashed white just for a second, I went to look out but there was nothing after that. I have absolulty no idea what caused it. It was was very bright almost blueish white. this was at aprox 10:30 pm on the south coast UK.

I scanned the night sky for anything that could have done what my wife saw, I thought it might have been a Police helicopter with its high power search lights but there were no choppers in sight and no sound so it can't have been that.

I'm not trying to link it to the noise people hear in the sky or the rumbling but its all very weird stuff...

Probably sprites above a thunderstorm that's too far away to see or hear the clouds and rumblings. They go way up in the atmosphere. They are early this year, almost two or more months early. They contain antimatter too. Here's a site that shows a little about them and there is also an article about them on Yahoo today about the early part. earthsky.org... Is this the stargate?

Possibly, it was a bolide entering the atmosphere and giving off flashes of light as it burnt up. There are many examples of them posted on YouTube.

reply to post by Mclaneinc


We have that here in Missouri on a very HOT day/nite.. We call it Heat Lightening. There is never a noise only the flash that lights the entire area like daytime.. I am from California and it never happened out there..

reply to post by hollwd


We get heat lightning here occasionally. I wasn't aware that it didn't exist everywhere. I Learned something new again.

reply to post by Mclaneinc


When was this ? I was up doing the show this morning at 0200 to 0600 and Im right by RAF Northolt looking east over Heathrow/Hayes (actually my window look directly over the A40 and Heathrow's normal approach)

Cant say I saw anything this morning ?

Edited to add - the Met police chopper was up at 0340ish - I noticed as I was getting a coffee but it seemed to be over Southall at the time ? Its light is pretty bright.

Originally posted by Mclaneinc
Righty, just asked my wife re the flashes.

No migraines...

The colour was an ultra bright yellow tinted flash..After pressing her she says the light was blindingly bright with what she thought was a yellowish tint but that could just be the eye responding to the sudden explosion of light?

I can say that from the sincerity of her voice at the time of the flashes she DID see something, what I have no clue but it is a little bit weird.

edit on 31-3-2012 by Mclaneinc because: (no reason given)

I have seen the exact same thing in Algeria, I live in the mountains and over the course of a few nights, I saw this flash of yellow light bigger then the sun, in clear sky, only stars, twice, and told my husband, of course he had never heard of anything like that and I have no explantion for it, but I know thats what I saw.

Originally posted by CottonwoodStormy

Originally posted by Mclaneinc
Righty, just asked my wife re the flashes.

No migraines...

The colour was an ultra bright yellow tinted flash..After pressing her she says the light was blindingly bright with what she thought was a yellowish tint but that could just be the eye responding to the sudden explosion of light?

I can say that from the sincerity of her voice at the time of the flashes she DID see something, what I have no clue but it is a little bit weird.

edit on 31-3-2012 by Mclaneinc because: (no reason given)

I have seen the exact same thing in Algeria, I live in the mountains and over the course of a few nights, I saw this flash of yellow light bigger then the sun, in clear sky, only stars, twice, and told my husband, of course he had never heard of anything like that and I have no explantion for it, but I know thats what I saw.

and it happened within a blink of parts of a second so it seemed unbless you were starring at that exact moment you would miss it, this happened last summer.

reply to post by Mclaneinc


Sometimes electric trains flash light, that is if you live near Northolt train station.