What The Heck Were They Doing?

I have a mystery that I am sure someone here on ATS can help me solve. About twenty years ago I saw something that puzzles me to this day. My father (may he rest in peace) and his brothers would stand around a car battery with wires that went from the posts and then connected together which would create a visible arc of electricity and an audible humming sound they would stand within close range of this and have these serious talks. I secretly caught them doing this on a number of occasions. I was raised in a very old school type of family where we as children and young adults knew our place. We were taught to not question our parents about their activities. There were many things I wanted to ask my father about but just never had the nerve. Now he has passed and so have all my uncles. I have tried to figure it out with searching around the net but have not come up with anything. I do have an idea as to what they were up to but cannot be sure. So can anyone make sense of this?

They could have been quite simply discussing how to make an arc welder with the car battery :

How to Make an Arc Welder with a Car Battery & Pocket Change :

home-tools.wonderhowto.com...

However, there is also another far flung explanation that i heard a couple of years ago.

Some people seem to be completely excited and refreshed after a viloent thunderstorm and from various scources that i have heard this has to do with the ozone created by the high amount of electricity and ozone in the air. (positive and negative ions too?)

One of my ex bosses told me about a couple of factories in Switzerland back in the 1950s who had created metal grid ceilings in their workshops very similar to those seen in the bumper car rides in the older fashioned fairgrounds, apparantly they used this system to create arcs and ozone or +/- ions which helped to boost the productivity of the workers within the factory... not sure if this entirely true or not and i haven't managed to find anything on the net related to this, but maybe this is also what they were trying to do in order to obtain their deep and meaningful conversations? (i know it sounds kind of crazy... but you never know?)

Kindest respects

Rodinus

reply to post by Rodinus

They would not have acted so serious if that were the case plus they would have been in the garage they were skilled mechanics amongst other trades they were in meeting mode and always in the same place on my uncles property where they were out of view. Looking back it was very shady what they were up to. Could it have been some sort of homemade audio jamming devise??? Can something like that be made with a car battery??? But you had some ideas I had not thought of and as to the Ions my dad and uncles were not into things like that. They were all about steak and potatos hard work salt of the earth types they would have thought it to be a hippy sorta thing...haha...Good ol boys...

Maybe it was someway of stopping anyone from listening to their conversations electronically, no proof or anything just breaking out my tinfoil hat and giving an explanation

An electric arc sends out radio waves over a wide EM spectrum. This could be used to jam wireless listening devices. Sounds like they had discussions they were afraid might be bugged.

reply to post by Magister


THis seems very plausible.

Not many organized crimes types let their kids in on what is going on. And the kids often "know their place.

Anyway, it is a very interesting story.