Mystery in Bridgewater, NJ: What Caused Strange Glowing Lights in the Sky?

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It may have looked like an out-of-this-world blast, but authorities say a mysterious glow that lit up the early-morning sky in Bridgewater today was no cause for alarm.

Some county and Bridgewater officials believe that transformer fires caused by heavy rain may have played a part in the freakish light show, although they had no definitive answers about the source of the lights.

Shortly after midnight, several Bridgewater residents reported seeing a pulsating glow in the distance that changed colors, similar to the aurora borealis. They said the lights appeared to come from the northern part of the township.

"The sky lit up like pure daylight," said 87-year-old Joseph Wing, who lives on Foothill Road. "This was unlike anything I've ever seen."

Wing said he first wondered if an explosion was responsible, but he didn't hear a blast or feel an impact that matched the intensity of the lights.

He said the glow disappeared around 12:30 a.m. It was followed by reports of power outages in the township.

What the hell is this?!

It lights up the whole sky like daylight? Wow. I am sure people watching the event unfold would know the difference between this and lightning.

Could it have been a transformer about to blow or could it be good old aliens?

I looked around on ATS for this but didn't find anything, and it is too good of a story to pass up.

Any thoughts?

Pred....

They are old, but definately not good.

My first thoughts from the description would be this


there also many other examples

Notice both the vids are during night time

Looks exactly like what they said it was.. a transformer fire, I saw one of these in Ohio during a major ice storm last winter .. it lit up the sky for miles and was sustained for minutes .. it was rather scary because it was like seeing constant lightning ..

But that's what it looked like .. in our case it was an entire substation that went and then triggered multiple transformers to go up on surrounding streets... oddly enough despite putting on a massive light show, it only caused small pockets of power outages ..

Power arcs can be extremely bright ...

reply to post by grindhouzer


Doubtful it's a meteor, lasts too long. Glow from a fire would be orange and yellow, not blue and green. Also you would have to be very close to the fire for it to light up the sky as much as it is in those videos. Solar activity maybe? Anyone know if there was a recent flare or something?

Originally posted by mus8472
reply to post by grindhouzer

 

Doubtful it's a meteor, lasts too long. Glow from a fire would be orange and yellow, not blue and green. Also you would have to be very close to the fire for it to light up the sky as much as it is in those videos. Solar activity maybe? Anyone know if there was a recent flare or something?

Well we're talking transformers, probably a substation as in the case here in Ohio last year.. extremely high voltage arc'ing while the transformers are burning out .. they put off a VERY bright blue tinted light, just as lightning ( or a massive tesla coil ) .. we're not talking a normal fire... it would look EXACTLY as it does in the video.. ( seen it first hand .. scary stuff )

here's an example of a transformer at a substation going up, this is a single transformer.. now imagine several of them going up at once.. that's what I saw .. and it lit the sky for miles, for several minutes.

Here's another example of a substation malfunction ...

reply to post by predator0187


Too long time for lights of a meteor....
Something else....
S&F.

Yes...too long for a meteor....and at first, I thought transformers or heat lightning, until I saw the odd orange colors....never saw that with transformer blowouts...they are usually bright white and blue. I could be wrong, but I have seen transformers blow and never saw that vibrant orange. However, maybe it was something atmospheric interacting with the light from a blowout....all I know is it would freak me out if I saw it!

On my way home from work a few months back, i noticed a pulsing light in a cloud. It seemed to stay in the same spot for the 5 minutes I could see it. It wasn't a blinking light, it glowed brighter and dimmed down, as if it was throbbing. it would take roughly 3 seconds to gradually dim down and hit it's brightest point again. I've searched the Internet and have not really found anything that resembles this.

Size comparison: looking up at roughly 45-50 degrees, over a town that was roughly 2 miles away. was roughly the size of the moon(or holding a quarter out in front of you) at it's brightest moment. the smallest it would get was about the size of a pea if you held it out as far as you could reach. I realize being in or behind clouds will skew the amount of light I would see.. I have never seen anything like this before... then again I have never seen a weather balloon...

It does sound/look like a transformer rather than a meteor.

As numerous people have mentioned, it is a bit long lasting for a meteor.

Also, if it was such a long lasting meteor, it would be moving across the sky, and since the direction of light would be changing, you'd see that movement (moving shadows and "rays"), just like you can in the longer lasting examples in this compilation:



In the case of a long lasting meteor you'd also expect it to be seen over a much wider area (a few states is not unusual), and for the meteor itself to be observed. Bright meteors occur at many 10s of km altitude, so they can easily be seen from a few hundred km away, and a long lasting fireball that covers a long distance above the ground could quite easily be visible along a track a few hundred km wide x 1000+ km long.

Since people only saw the flashes in a relatively localized area, and for the other reasons mentioned above, a meteor is very unlikely.