Dark Lightening

Ever heard of it?
I haven't.
I was reading this article and the thing that came to my mind were two things.
The Bermuda Triangle and foo-fighters.

Strange occurrence's and sightings happening to airplanes.

I remember somewhere reading about this "strange glow" around airplanes before,but I can't find it now.

So would this be a possible explanation to these strange phenomena?

The article I am referencing to........

Dark lightning appears sometimes to compete with normal lightning as a way for thunderstorms to vent the electrical energy that gets pent up inside their roiling interiors, Dwyer says. Unlike with regular lightning, though, people struck by dark lightning, most likely while flying in an airplane, would not get hurt. But according to Dwyer’s calculations, they might receive in an instant the maximum safe lifetime dose of ionizing radiation — the kind that wreaks the most havoc on the human body. The only way to determine whether an airplane had been struck by dark lightning, Dwyer says, “would be to use a radiation detector. Right in the middle of [a flash], a very brief bluish-purple glow around the plane might be perceptible. Inside an aircraft, a passenger would probably not be able to feel or hear much of anything, but the radiation dose could be significant.”

This is what caught my eye..

very brief bluish-purple glow around the plane

www.popsci.com...
What do you think?

Peace,
K

Woah...never heard of that.

Kinda scary though, about the possible exposure while in a plane. I don't know much about this type of thing, but do they have some sort of detectors on planes so they would know if there were an exposure?

Would love to see a picture!

reply to post by westcoast


Hey,westcoast.
Yes it is scary to think that you could receive a lifetime dosage of radiation in a flash without knowing it.

what about all those people on passenger planes? even the children. they are getting exposed to radiation without knowing it. i need to see this dark lightning! it's one of those things that i just have to see!

They call that electrical glow St. Elmo's Fire. I think it is like static electricity. I would imagine that in a storm there is a lot of electricity in the air to cause it.

I saw a good science show similar to this recently, I think the term Sprites was used to discuss how lightning can travel towards space (although that isn't dark lightning but some plasma phenomenom I think) .

Here is a recent NASA video on Dark Lightning, which they have formed theories about based on newer observations from their Gamma Ray Observatory...



p.s. - OP, I think you have to fix your link, its clunky, at least for me

I was on a jet flying to Las Vegas about thirteen years ago. I was talking to a stewardess when a bolt of lightning hit the engine of the jet. The stewardess jumped into my arms as I sat there. I guess it was a ring of energy that built up around the nose that let go and jumped to the engine. The pilot said it was common and was of no harm. When we landed they taxied the plane to an area away from anything and a bunch of trucks and a firetruck came there and inspected it. Then, after about ten minutes we were allowed to go to the terminal. If it was nothing than why didn't they let us close to the terminal to inspect it

That was the second time I had a girl jump into my arms when lightning struck close by I like lightning, it is my friend. When I say jump into my arms, I mean land sitting in my arms as if picked up and dropped there..

reply to post by rickymouse


If a girl jumped my arms now,she would have to be a little petite.



Happens all the time,eh?

You can keep lightening as your friend,BTW,me no likes.

Originally posted by kdog1982

This is what caught my eye..

very brief bluish-purple glow around the plane

What do you think?

Peace,
K

Said it before and I will say it once more.....HAAAAAAAAAARP!!!!!!!!!

reply to post by surfin4it


That is weird,it was just working,the link that is.
I'm beginning to think it's me shutting everything down.



I tried it again,and it worked,when I reposted the link it didn't.

Try this one.....

www.popsci.com...

reply to post by kdog1982


Thank you kdog, for this most interesting rabbit hole!

Dark Lightning.—When a photographic plate is exposed to a succession of lightning flashes it occasionally happens that one or more of the earlier streak images, on development, exhibits the "Clayden effect"—that is, appears completely reversed— while the others show no such tendency. Obviously, then, on prints from such a negative the reversed streaks must appear as dark lines (Fig. 120), and for that reason the lightning flashes that produced them have been called " dark lightning." There is, of course, no such thing as dark lightning, since the only invisible radiation to which the ordinary photographic plate is sensitive is the ultra-violet, which cannot be excited by electric discharges in the atmosphere without at the same time producing visible radiation. Nevertheless, the photographic phenomenon that gives rise to the name " dark lightning," is real, interesting, and reproducible at will in the laboratory.106

Physics of the air
By William Jackson Humphreys at google books, first published in 1920.

I wonder if this is related?


And here is an even older reference:

Nature 60, 391 (24 August 1899) | doi:10.1038/060391a0;

Apparent Dark Lightning Flashes

WILLIAM J. S. LOCKYER

Abstract

During the exposures I was observing the sky, and repeatedly found that after nearly each bright flash I could see distinctly a. reversed image of each flash in any part of the sky to which?

Nature which is, of course, paywalled.


Here is a reference which is a little more recent:

This matter of NBEs behaving as “dark lightning” (rel- ative to other lightning) is sufficiently contentious, as well as sufficiently puzzling, that we return to the data of Fig. 1 and examine in detail the tight-coincidence events classified by LASA as NBEs.

Revisiting “Narrow Bipolar Event” intracloud lightning using the FORTE satellite, page 5 < direct link to PDF.

This was published in 2012.


Very good thread, buddy! Different and unique, something I've never heard of and that's rare!

reply to post by kdog1982


You beat me to posting this! Good find. S+F

reply to post by jadedANDcynical


Hey JC,good to see you around!

That book you linked to is very interesting,thanks.

Sounds like a radioactive plasma.

Checking back soon

Any plane can get hit by lightening and the result is nothing unless the bolt is able to ignite fuel in the wings. This doesn't happen because the bolt simply passes through the plane looking for the ground. No one typically ever knows that lightening struck their plane unless they saw it.

Regarding dark lightening, I don't understand how the energy discharge doesn't release photons and the source seems flimsy.

How is dark lightening detected and why does it not emit photons? Further how do you distinguish the residual radiation on the aircraft from "regular" lightening.

The blueish color you refer to is likely related to the "ball lightening" phenomenon which is real. You can google it, I don't remember the exact mechanism but they are real.

yes! ball lightning is real! my dad told me when he was a child, he saw lightning hit the ground and a lightning ball was left to bounce around. he said it danced around the field then dissapeared. weird huh? now i gotta google some pics!

reply to post by LastStarfighter

Regarding dark lightening, I don't understand how the energy discharge doesn't release photons and the source seems flimsy.

If it fluoresces in ultraviolet and above, we wouldn't see it but that would account for it showing up on photographic plates as those are affected by visible and uv spectrum.

According to their model, instead of creating normal lightning, thunderstorms can sometimes produce an exotic kind of electrical breakdown that involves high-energy electrons and their anti-matter equivalent called positrons. The interplay between the electrons and positrons causes an explosive growth in the number of these high-energy particles, emitting the observed flash of gamma-rays while rapidly discharging the thundercloud, sometimes even faster than normal lightning. Even though copious gamma-rays are emitted by this process, very little visible light is produced, creating a kind of electrical breakdown within the storms called “dark lightning.”

...

This fundamental research is funded in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's NIMBUS program. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Florida Tech Professors Present Dark Side of Dark Lightning

So you tell me how flimsy this is...



Ball light in is some crazy stuff, never experienced it, but have heard some stories from my great-uncle who had.

Said it came in through a keyhole (skeleton key type) and sort of bounced around the room like a ball sparking where it hit smelling like ozone (he described it differently, but this is what he meant) and then it fizzled out.

OK thanks for the explanation. Yes I know ball lightening is real, my grandmother saw it as a child. She said it just floated in end one end of the house and then went into the sink I think--very interesting.

Thank you

reply to post by LastStarfighter


I apologize if I came across as snarky in my prior post, not intending to condescend.

Here is something from a study published in 2009 referencing the phenomena. :

This led to the suspicion that the strongest impulsive VHF events may be a distinct class of discharge, which produces little or no optical emission. This new finding of “dark lightning” has yet to be explained. We do no yet know whether there truly is no optical emission at all from NBEs or if it is just a detection/sensitivity issue. All we know presently is that the optical emission is below the detection threshold of current instruments. Unpublished data have shown agreement with the “dark lightning” finding, in that photodiodes fielded alongside ground-based VLF/LF sensors typically show no optical light curves de- tected from corresponding VLF/LF NBE detections. Therefore, the upper limit to radiated power of any NBE-optical-emission appears to be low.

Chapter 13: Space- and Ground-Based Studies of Lightning Signatures

I find it interesting that it rates the highest in energy levels of VHF frequencies yet it produces little to no visible emission.