Jan 15 2009

Wind Turbine UFO Theories

Reading over the different ideas sent in by readers to the online version of the local Louth Leader (UK) paper, I was struck by U.S. researcher Ray Stanford’s reply:

Below zero weather, if there had been a lot of humidity with substantial clouds, might have resulted in snow lightning, with bright lightning (possibly ball lightning) and resultant boom(s).
One of the loudest booms I’ve ever heard was caused by snow lightning. Of course I’m not alleging that to be the cause of the wind turbine damage, but just wondering, since prosaic explanations, if they are realistic and fit the circumstances, are preferred to exotic or extraordinary ones.

Armed with this comment, and its similarity to my own ideas about the episode, I checked my copy of one of William Corliss’ Sourcebook volumes, but could find nothing in his examination of the scientific literature on the phenomenon of “octopus” or “jellyfish” -like electrical discharges. There is plenty on unusual ball-lightning formations, including one from Scotland in 1975:

It may be that the combination of the weather conditions at the time along with the massive windmills spinning at high speed and the resulting vorticies and airflow patterns in the area created a “perfect storm” of conditions which resulted in some weird displays. It could have even led to the weakening of the turbine blade which caused it to break.

Or perhaps is was UFOs or secret aircraft testing. I have no idea. The weather theories are most interesting to me right now.

If you can locate more info about natural electrical phenomena that resemble the “orange lights” and “octopus” -shaped things observed at the Conisholme wind farm, please comment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 7:58 am and is filed under Anomalous Phenomena, UFO Sightings, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.
del.icio.us Digg Reddit BlinkList Google Ma.gnolia StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Help