Mysterylights Group Message 0388

Subject: Re: Croxteth, Liverpool, UK Earth Light
From: "sean_b_palmer" <sean@...>
Date: 06 Apr 2006 15:38

On Thu Apr 6, 2006 2:41 am Bill Bimson wrote: 

> I am new to this list, Dave Clarke reccomended it.

Welcome! Rather a prestigious introduction, if the Dave Clarke you
mention is the one that I'm thinking of.

> Haven't found my way all the way around it yet, especially 
> your website, but I certainly intend to. I have already 
> found some stuff that I find very interesting.

And I'm posting more all the time. I have quite a few articles that
are nearing completion, just requiring some final touches. One, for
example, is about the Taurus Mountains light reported back in 1900;
another a transcription of an old Will-o'-the-wisp essay from 1777.

> I examined a UFO case for MARA back in 2001 and the conclusion I 
> came to was that it was an earth light, only because I couldn't 
> find any other explanation for it. Would you mind having a look 
> at the webpage sometime and let me know what you think?

Am I right in thinking that the event has been captured by observers
that were out seeking anomalous events? They were aware of the ley
line in the vicinity so this appears to be the case. That's rather a
mixed blessing if so.

My initial reaction was that the behaviour sounded like a flare, which
is not something that you have on your list of interpretations. The
slow downwards motion, three minute duration, and bright orange colour
are consistent with that that; as is the slow lateral movement and
eventual demise around the horizon.

But there are also the characteristics of shape and colour shift, and
the periodic variability in brightness, which may be inconsistent with
that interpretation. The latter, the flashing of the object, may be a
film artefact--did you test, for example, the moon as a reference
object to see if it exhibited the same behaviour on the film?

As for the shape and colour, I'm not sure how vivid these
characteristics were since I've not seen the film, so it would indeed
be great if I could see it. But even then, the observer reports would
probably be more helpful: did they feel that it behaved in such a way
which is inconsistent with a flare? If so, how so? Have they seen
flares before in the area? Have they seen any flares before at all?

Apart from that, it does seem that your other conclusions about it not
being an astronomical object, aircraft, or other more outlandish thing
are correct from the data that I can see. If it's not a flare, or
something else that neither of us have thought of, then it may well be
an earth light. And as with all possible earth light sightings, the
question then becomes: what next?

I think there are generally two important things that can be done with
amateur sightings of possible earth lights. 1) Record the event as
well as possible and then submit it to as many cumulative anomalous
incident databases as possible, rather than letting it be a
standalone; and 2) possibly conduct further research in the area to
see whether the event was sporadic or not, using as much equipment as
possible to record further events in the latter case.

Another thing that I would do, if it were a friend of mine that had
made the sighting, is go back and ask again and again for more
information extracting every possible detail that they can recall.
Wind direction, approximate location, any irregularities with the
camera, past observations by the same witnesses, the direction of the
lateral movement, and so on, are all useful to know: the more info,
the more value.

The correlation that you make with the pulsating, blinking, flashing
motion and earth lights is certainly an interesting one--and I
remember from the Project Hessdalen report that Erling Strand mused
about whether their radar was interacting with some of the objects
that they were scanning since they'd only give echos every second
sweep. Something for further study, that's for sure.

Anyway, thanks for posting this sighting and I hope my feedback has
been of some use. I'd like to see the video if I may, especially if
you can post a digitised version of that online somewhere. And welcome
again to the mysterylights list!

Cheers,

-- 
Sean B. Palmer, mysterylights.com
Homepage: http://inamidst.com/sbp/

Mailing list run by Sean B. Palmer
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