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These strange lights can appear before earthquakes but rarely afterwards They often occur near rifts caused by movement in Earth's tectonic plates Scientists believe the tension during this process creates an electronic charge, which turns into light when it reaches the surface
By Daily Mail Reporter PUBLISHED: 19:45, 2 January 2014 | UPDATED: 20:18, 2 January 2014
They have been linked to UFOs and hallucinations and thought to be harbingers of doom. Now scientists claim to have unravelled more details about a family of mysterious floating orbs, known as 'earthquake lights' The lights, which take many forms and appear before or during earthquakes, could provide an early warning sign. Scroll down for video...
Mysterious floating orbs of lights are harbingers of an im m inent earthquake, scientists claim . These lights w ere seen before the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China
For instance, seconds before the 2009 LAquila, Italy earthquake struck, pedestrians saw 10cm high flames of light flickering above the stone-paved Francesco Crispi Avenue in the towns historical city centre. In 1988 a bright purple-pink globe of light moved through the sky along the St. Lawrence River near the city of Quebec, 11 days before a powerful quake. And in 1906, about 100km northwest of San Francisco, a couple saw streams of light running along the ground two nights preceding the devastating earthquake that destroyed much of the city. The rare earthquake lights are more likely to occur on or near a rift, an elongated depression or trough in the Earths crust bounded on both sides by normal faults, than other faults. VIDEO: Earthquake lights seen 30 minutes before 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China
Upon reaching the surface, they ionise air molecules and generate the observed light. Continental rift environments now appear to be the common factor associated with earthquake lights. Looking back at 65 of the best recorded incidents earthquake lights were recorded in American and European documents dating from the 1600s, 85 percent appeared spatially on or near rifts. And 97 per cent appeared adjacent to a type of fault known as a subvertical fault Intraplate faults are associated with just five per cent of Earths seismic activity, but 97 per cent of documented cases of earthquake lights. Geologist Robert Thiriault of the Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec said: 'Earthquake lights as a pre-earthquake phenomenon, in combination with other types of parameters that vary prior to seismic activity, may one day help forecast the approach of a major quake.
Scientists are still unsure w hy m ore earthquake light events are related to rift environm ents than other types of faults. How ever, they believe they can help w arn of earthquakes in the future
'The numbers are striking and unexpected. We dont know quite yet why more earthquake light events are related to rift environments than other types of faults.' The earthquake lights described varied in shape and extent, though most commonly appeared as globular luminous masses, either stationary or moving, as atmospheric illuminations or as flame-like issuing from the ground. Because they occur before or during the quakes it is suggested the processes responsible for earthquake lights formation are related to a rapid build-up of stress prior to fault rupture and rapid local stress changes during the propagation of the seismic waves.
Continental rift environm ents now appear to be the com m on factor associated w ith earthquake lights. This im age of an earthquake light w as taken in El Salvador
Eyewitness reports and security cameras captured a large number of light flashes during the 2007 8.0 magnitude earthquake at Pisco, Peru. Together with seismic records obtained on a local university campus, the automatic security camera records allow for an exact timing and location of light flashes that illuminated a large portion of the night sky. The light flashes identified as earthquake lights coincided with the passage of the seismic waves. The study was published in Seismological Research Letters.
Comments (103)
Share what you think Newest Oldest Best rated Worst rated View newest 10 Grasshopper Farmer, Sandburrville, moments ago Must not apply to fracking earthquakes or there would be several reports of them every day.
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Bigger Nugget, BAHaaa, I am really unsure of some of the comments you are making, we are not talking about 3.6MW we are talking big time, bouncing of satellites, heating the ionosphere, lot more power than 3.6, Who is the sheep here, you Where do you get your information, same as us? Maybe you are not familiar with modern technology and what it can do, or you are just not up in the world, I am not instructed to believe anything, eat you GM foods, and perhaps you will live up to your name.
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Click to rate DAT, Ipswich, United Kingdom, 21 minutes ago It's the miasmic contortions of the tectonics wot causes the spheroidal illuminations in di atmospherics. Onist mista.
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Click to rate OMG, UK, 26 minutes ago Cracks for earthquakes - letting light out from the inner core.
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Click to rate dww25, Norwich, 1 hour ago Then these scientists are only about 30 years behind the times! Yes it's been known for that long.
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Click to rate Ian Beds Uk, Bedfordshire, 1 hour ago HAARP ....Tesla, scalar weapon, resonance, Geo engineering these are not sci fi, and you really are foolish if you think they are, did technology suddenly stop at nuclear fission and space exploration and genetics or biometrics, it goes on so why is weather or resonance manipulation any different....people who red flag, your minds are small, but it doesn't matter Im awake you are not
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Click to rate Mr Right, London, United Kingdom, 1 hour ago There has been earthquakes happening since who knows and this is the first time I am hearing about earthquakes producing orbs in the sky. Makes no sense. I feel there's more to this
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Click to rate sharp_blade, bournemouth, United Kingdom, 2 hours ago See those everyday nowadays, the sunlight reflecting and refracting through all the airborne aluminum, barium, strontium and other nastiness in the now de classified solar radiation management program or chemtrails. That is facts
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Click to rate Spencer I. Mather, Bradwell-Great Yarmouth, 2 hours ago This has been known about for the last forty or so years, so it is not news..!!!
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Click to rate Rosicky, London, United Kingdom, 2 hours ago HAARP? I don't think so. As a geologist these phenomena have been known for decades and whilst there's no broad consensus on the exact method of generation, it's generally agreed up that they originate due to the friction of faults sliding against one another. Rocks aren't just lumps of hard stuff, they have electrical properties too. Quartz, for example, can carry an electrical charge. Earthquake lights are most likely just a dissipation of a charge into the atmosphere. Interesting, but worthy of a conspiracy to explain them? No.
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ToySoldier, Essex, United Kingdom, 3 hours ago Oh Tesla - why did you got hide your life's work? The US got hold of it and now look at what they are doing. Using your theories and work, they've caused so much devastation. The US must be the biggest war-mongers on the planet and yet the most deceptive government known to history. It still baffles me how they do what they do when there is so much evidence against them and with their massive debt. Maybe it's because they are the NWO eh? Who knows but you know what, bring it on because we are sick of the waiting now. Just bring it.
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Eric Arthur Blair, Plymouth, United Kingdom, 2 hours ago Play station broken down? 7 7 Click to rate vineslinger, McGrath, United States, 4 hours ago I would like the correct terminology used please. It is called a fault not a rift. A rift is a spreading center like the Mid Atlantic Rift. The San Andreas Fault runs through San Francisco.
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Click to rate vineslinger, McGrath, United States, 4 hours ago All I want is the right terminology used. You are not talking about rifts, you are talking about faults. A rift is a spreading center. ie the Mid-Atlantic Rift
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Click to rate Henryjones, Hamshire, 4 hours ago SkyGuy HAARP is still going strong, just because you have an ology does not mean you know very much, look at all these global warming people all have it wrong, but do not admit it, look up in the sky Chemtrails, weather modification, cloud seeding etc etc Gakona Alaska, Pueto Rico, Norway Australia China Russia all have Haarp facilities, what they really use them for they fail to admit, the jet stream is moved by Haarp Maybe all these people, study and research Haarp have got it all wrong, can we send them to your home because, you seem to be the only person who knows, because you have an ology? Get a life Skyguy or a new degree,. I suggest that you do a little more research sky guy, before you ridicule persons
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People who studied HAARP? Like Jesse Ventura you mean? Where did he get his scientific degree again? By the way research isn't watching wootube videos. 21 10 Click to rate Bigger Nugget, sideways through a crack, United Kingdom, 2 hours ago Henryjones. Another sheep who believes everything he is instructed to believe. Maybe YOU would like to develop a response to the question I posed earlier: OK, if it's really HAARP, what about some figures to back up your otherwise baseless statement? Something simple would do - If we are talking about heating the ionosphere, why not check and see whether it is fundamentally possible in the scenario of HAARP. Work out roughly the power delivered to the target against the power output of HAARP, allowing for losses from the steerable beam when it's anything but straight up, the path the HF beam has to take to get halfway round the globe, and the losses incurred in the multiple reflections required to traverse that path. It's a really simple calculation. Just give your reasoning and a total loss figure in dB. Assume all the 3.6MW transmitter power output is available. It's a relatively simple calculation with all the criteria readily supportable. 5 2 Click to rate Corrigenda, St Albans, United Kingdom, 5 hours ago Reading the scientifically illiterate comments on here it's no wonder we have people thinking fracking is dangerous (it's not) or that we should avoid GM food (we shouldn't) or that we should avoid nuclear power (we shouldn't).or that evolution is wrong (it isn't). We really do need to clear out from our schools teachers who do not have the ability to promote factual science.
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RWT, York, 3 hours ago Oh how I agree. However looking at the way science is taught these days I wouldn't hold my breath. 1
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Eric Arthur Blair, Plymouth, United Kingdom, 2 hours ago I'm afraid that you will find You Tube in education and research establishments to say otherwise is false 0 5 Click to rate Tyler Durden, Bonham-Carter, Saint Helena, 5 hours ago Morgellons.
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Click to rate Aynsley, Palm Springs, 6 hours ago Looks like a sundog to me. Not that uncommon.
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Click to rate skyguy, Wallasey, United Kingdom, 8 hours ago Oh please will you ignorant idiotic HAARP idiots go away. This is serious science not comic science conspiracies for juvenile minds dept. Everything is HAARP to you, and you haven't a clue what you're talking about. Have a degree in meteorology? I have...
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2 of 6 repliesSee all replies Bigger Nugget, sideways through a crack, United Kingdom, 4 hours ago
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OK, if it's really HAARP, and you are really so very clued up on the subject, what about some figures to back up your otherwise baseless statement? Something simple would do - say relating the power output of HAARP, the losses from the steerable beam when it's anything but straight up, the path the HF beam has to take to get halfway round the globe, and the losses incurred in the multiple reflections required to traverse that path. It's a really simple calculation. Just give your reasoning and a total loss figure in dB. Assume all the 3.6MW transmitter power output is available (and please don't confuse actual power with ERP). For those who aren't as well informed as you claim to be, every 3dB is a halving of power, so 6dB is one quarter, 9dB is one eighth, etc. We await your response, O wise one. 15 3 Click to rate Bigger Nugget, sideways through a crack, United Kingdom, 2 hours ago I take the plethora of unsupported red arrows as full vindication of my last post - unless ANYONE can make a coherent, supported argument otherwise, that stands up to scrutiny. 1 1 Click to rate
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Oh go away you absolute idiot. HAARP finished years ago and had nothing to do with the lower atmosphere. I loathe ignorance. 36 18 Click to rate Muklucs, Ottawa, 10 hours ago I've seen these clouds in Canada many times and when staying in Sweden one time in the summer - no earth quakes followed. Now when something like this is following by a so called expert saying - THIS IS what it is, I immediately doubt them, any scientist has to prove it to be fact otherwise it's just speculation. For example the CAGW crap, just a big lie.
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Click to rate carlbotha, New York, 11 hours ago Earthquakes are mostly caused when the movements of our fat people in the West get out of sync with the movements of the many people in the East. Ongoing research suggests that we should adjust day-light-saving-hours in such a manner that time-zones do not fall directly onto fault-lines.
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Miranda, Bristol, United Kingdom, 12 hours ago Predicting earthquakes is not yet possible.
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Click to rate Maggie, Oxford, 12 hours ago Thought scientists were looking into radon gas release, which precede earthquakes.
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8 Click to rate Spalpeen, Jomtien, Thailand, 13 hours ago The video shows pearlescent clouds, a common sight. Nothing to do with earthquakes.
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Click to rate Bigger Nugget, sideways through a crack, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago If these were pearlescent clouds, you may have been right. Unfortunately they are not. 0 4 Click to rate Maritimer, Canada, 14 hours ago Looks like HAARP activity. You will also find that the depth of the earthquake will quite shallow and less than 10 km deep. The after shock will drop by at least two points rather than the normal one unit. In other words, they're man made by lifting the ionosphere and then collapsing the signal, causing a shock wave.
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2 of 4 repliesSee all replies Bigger Nugget, sideways through a crack, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago
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Love it when people blindly believe just what they are told to believe. @Maritimer and Roddy - You're typical Sheep. 2 5 Click to rate RWT, York, 3 hours ago The earthquakes in New Zealand and the one that caused the tsunami in Japan were not at 10km. Please go and read some books and stop getting your "scientific" knowledge from the internet conspiracy theory sites. 1 1 Click to rate Gibberellins, Nopetown, United Kingdom, 14 hours ago Aliens!
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8 7 Click to rate mytwocents, city, United Kingdom, 14 hours ago ...or its a rainbow on a cloud... whatever...see what you want to see...
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Click to rate honi soit qui mal y pense, Avalon, 15 hours ago Did these scientist ever went to school????? - hfgjfjfghjfg, London, United Kingdom, 03/01/2014 00:22 I'm going to went and find out.
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Click to rate Atavist, Little Oakley, United Kingdom, 15 hours ago The same happens around large dams set in quartz bearing rock as the water level changes.
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Click to rate C J Ireland, Ireland, 15 hours ago Haarp, Jesse Ventura on YouTube.. This weapon can be used to cause earthquakes and move the Jet-Stream causing terrible weather, gale force winds and flooding... The aluminium in the Chemtrail spraying above the clouds which then falls into the clouds, Haarp is then switched on, this heats up the aluminium in the cloud causing the cloud to rise to a colder atmosphere which in turn causing the cloud to rain, then down comes the lot, Chemtrails containing aluminium, barium and they are now finding viruses in hailstones.. Look up Agenda 21.
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re. aluminium watch "What in the World Are They Spraying" on youtube at 23mins. Where is this stuff coming from? 0 9 Click to rate
Neo, Upper East Side Matrix, United States, 13 hours ago Are you saying Agenda 21 is wonderful? 6 1 Click to rate
hfgjfjfghjfg, London, United Kingdom, 15 hours ago Did these scientist ever went to school?????
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Peter, Kingston, 14 hours ago Dumbest comment of the new year. 1 17 Click to rate stuartggray, Dunfermline, United Kingdom, 13 hours ago I see what you did there... 1 6 Click to rate ken mist, paris, 15 hours ago Ages old- just triboluminescence and piezo electricity from quartz rich rocks. Get two pieces of quarts and bang them together in a dark room and hey-presto!
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Click to rate MormontsRaven, North of Ireland, United Kingdom, 16 hours ago I heard about this donkeys ages ago.
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Peter, Chester, United Kingdom, 16 hours ago Yes, that is science.. You propose an explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. You reject or refine the idea until you reach the correct explanation.
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Click to rate afarce, London UK, 16 hours ago Is this global assassination and mind control re Haarp released by Snowdon?
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JackFtLaud, Davie, United States, 16 hours ago Lets hope they start appearing en mass over California.
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Click to rate whats the point, Bristol, 16 hours ago I'm jumping on the wagon, defo haarp
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Click to rate The-Commentator, Testing-my-standup-routine, United Kingdom, 16 hours ago Balance a seismograph on the edge of a wobbly table. When it falls off you've got an earthquake.
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Click to rate MstBaster, London, 17 hours ago Positive holes don't actually exist as charged particles. The concept of positive holes comes from semiconductor physics, what is actually happening is an electron is moving in one direction, as it moves it leaves behind a hole, that hole appears to move in the opposite direction. It's a very useful concept in semiconductor physics, but the reality is, there is no such tangible thing as a positive hole, there is NO charged particle called a 'hole'. Charged particles are electrons and protons.
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Click to rate Steve F, Chelmsford, United Kingdom, 17 hours ago I beileve this kind of activity was observed in New Zealand over 30 years ago and widely reported on the BBC etc.
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Eric Arthur Blair, Plymouth, United Kingdom, 13 hours ago Why you have two red arrows for stating the truth I will never know. These lights have been reported for decades 0 7 Click to rate marcleo, Bristol, 17 hours ago There's a lot we don't know about our planet, imagine the surprise when it was discovered the earth was round!!
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I'd keep that under your hat, there are UKIP supporters out there that still refuse to believe the world is round... 5 3 Click to rate meridian, crewe, 2 hours ago CyKosis - The world is flat but the earth is round 1 0 Click to rate thewholetruth, Preston, UK, 17 hours ago HAARP - Google it
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20 47 2 of 3 repliesSee all replies Ben Dover, Greenwood MS USA, 16 hours ago Please stop harping about this. 12 18 Click to rate Maxine, santiago, Chile, 5 hours ago @The-Commentator - I want to like your comment more than once, it's so funny 0 4 Click to rate AllAlexxx9, Timbucktwo, Canada, 17 hours ago cool ! Rated
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Click to rate starbaby, uk, United Kingdom, 17 hours ago Enter your commentThis is evidence for HAARP at work. If you don't know what it is Google it! Google Nikola Tesla while you are at it.
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2 of 3 repliesSee all replies salenthia, Scottsdale, 17 hours ago I was just going to post HAARP, Thanks for doing so:) 13 36
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Rated Tony M, Where the expats are not, 17 hours ago Please explain how it is evidence of HAARP at work. You are the one proposing this "theory", support it. 24 17 Click to rate denny916, Surrey, United Kingdom, 18 hours ago Or if they seriously want to try to predict earthquakes perhaps they should look to the sun and research the interaction between the changes in the solar wind, solar flares and coronal mass ejections and our own planet's magnetosphere. Trouble is, that falls under astrophysics not seismology and branches of science don't seem to work well together. Too blinkered and narrow-minded.
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Click to rate Colin McKay, Gillingham Kent, 18 hours ago To quote the DM from an article published in September 2011. Rainbow Clouds or even Fire Rainbows are formed when sunlight refracts off horizontal ice crystals in high-level cirrus clouds. The sun must be very high in the sky and it can not be seen at a latitude above 55degrees north (which includes Scotland and much of Canada) or below 55 degrees south.
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sarnia, Guernsey, 17 hours ago That is exactly what I was going to say we get them in the channel isles, there's no fault lines here 1 4
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Click to rate Colin McKay, Gillingham Kent, 18 hours ago To quote the DM from an article published in September 2011. Rainbow Clouds or even Fire Rainbows are formed when sunlight refracts off horizontal ice crystals in high-level cirrus clouds. The sun must be very high in the sky and it can not be seen at a latitude above 55degrees north (which includes Scotland and much of Canada) or below 55 degrees south.
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Click to rate Mrs RB, North Yorkshire, UK, 18 hours ago It's not going to provide much of a warning if the lights appear DURING an earthquake or SECONDS before !! Back to drawing board guys
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Click to rate Rightsaysmoi, Over the rainbow, Isle Of Man, 18 hours ago I love how scientists have an explanation for everything, and if wrong ...no problem they change their theory as many times as needed
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Peter, Kingston, 14 hours ago Good. 0 7 Click to rate RobC, Darkest Sussex, 7 hours ago You collect observations, propose a hypothesis, test it, if it fails look for a better one, eventually submit your work to your peers for review. It's called the scientific method, and it's the reason why you're not squatting in a hovel made of cow dung, dying of smallpox.
0 5 Click to rate logical15, Worthing, United Kingdom, 18 hours ago That's all very interesting but has anyone asked the question, what's with the rainbow? These aren't just random colours; they clearly follow the spectrum deep red through yellow, green, blue and finally violet. I'll bet any meteorologists reading this will be thinking atmospherics along the lines of rainbows, sundogs etc. Bit of a coincidence the colours follow the visible spectrum :-) Sorry DM if that's out of your spectrum scientific knowledge ;-)
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I think this clip joins the ranks of the half-minute clip of a rocket's exhaust claimed to be a meteor, and the long exposure still of stars setting claimed by another newspaper to be a meteor shower! 1 8 Click to rate
FuguAsAnAphrodisiac, USA, United States, 18 hours ago I just saw something like this very recently ( I thought it was a little piece of rainbow). There was no subsequent earthquake (and this is not an earthquake prone area).
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Click to rate jdomp, Oxford, 18 hours ago Its an eye btw. The circle shape is the Iris.
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Hard Up and Fed Up, Sheffield, United Kingdom, 19 hours ago Wow...must be aliens living in the earth core...or some other stupid cause
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Click to rate crs79, should have chose the blue pill, 19 hours ago HAARP
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2 of 3 repliesSee all replies Tony M, Where the expats are not, 17 hours ago
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Strange how all they say is the one word though, HAARP, that's it. Bunch of conspiracy clones, parroting their masters nothing more. 37 21 Click to rate The-Commentator, Testing-my-standup-routine, United Kingdom, 16 hours ago FOSTERS? 13 22 Click to rate Mii, Suffolk, 19 hours ago I read about earth lights nearly 20 years ago before going to study physics at university. Hardly news is it.
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Click to rate Delacey70, Shipley, United Kingdom, 19 hours ago Fascinating, but none of this is proven as fact. I would like to know more from someone who knows what they are talking about.
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meridian, crewe, 2 hours ago STAYS SHARP TO HE BOTTOM OF THE GLASS! 0 3 Click to rate meridian, crewe, 2 hours ago stays sharp to the bottom of the glass! 0 1 Click to rate Arthur Daley, Paris, 19 hours ago I thought that this only happened in Cardiff.
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Click to rate Rick, Lincoln, United Kingdom, 19 hours ago i see things like that when i'm drunk to
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The-Commentator, Testing-my-standup-routine, United Kingdom, 16 hours ago I'll drink to you then! 2 8
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