Lightening Q

Everything on this forum is always interesting ... might not have anything to do with khukuris but it's always interesting.
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I was lying in bed fully awake during a thunderstorm one summer afternoon (I was working night shift at the time). I want to emphasize I was fully awake; I was not in a half-awake hypnagogic state when you can dream something and think it really happened -- I was fully awake and this really happened. There was a loud thunderstorm going on and I couldn't sleep but I didn't care, I was just lying there relaxing and enjoying the fireworks.

A ball of lightning came in one window and floated very slowly across the room and went out the other window, passing only a few inches above my supine body. Every hair on my body stood on end. I say very slowly ... maybe it really only took a second or two, but it seemed to take a long time, like maybe five or ten seconds ... it wasn't just a flash lighting up my room or even fork lightning shooting through my room; it was a ball about a yard (one meter) in diameter, like a ball of fire, bright and dense in the center, fading out toward the edges, yellow-white in color and very bright but not blinding. I didn't feel any electric shock, no pain, but all my hairs stood on end, a weird feeling ... you'd get that with a strong charge of static electricity....


Both windows of my bedroom were open. They had screens but the screens weren't grounded. The windows were on adjacent walls and the ball of lightning followed a curved path -- it came in through one window and went straight to the middle of the room, then turned and passed right over me, only inches above me, to go out the other window.

No one else saw it; as far as I know no one else saw any ball lightning during that storm.

Some people I've told the story to believe it couldn't have happened because the windows were screened and say I must have dreamed it, but I am sure I was fully awake and as far as I can see ... if the screens had been grounded -- but they weren't; it was a wooden house. I don't think the presence of the window screens has any bearing on it at all; they wouldn't pose any obstacle to ball lightning.

With the possible exception of the window screens my experience is consistent with other observations of ball lightning I've read -- it moves slowly and there's a static charge around it; reports of hair standing on end when ball lightning passes near you are common.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Thanks, Cougar. I wonder what would have happened had you reached up and tried to play ball with the lightning?

Another I just remembered. When I was a little kid growing up in Kansas one summer afternoon we had one of those violent thunderstorms common to Tornado Alley and I was forced to stay inside the house and wait it out.

I was sitting on my grandmother's lap playing with a small cap piston which I was not allowed to discharge in the house. Bored to tears, I pointed the pistol at our old wood burning stove and threatened to shoot a hole in it. Grandmother advised me against breaking the rules. She maintained that I should treat the capgun like a real gun in order to learn and respect the rules of firearms conduct and ownership.

Hardhead that I was and still am, I decided to ignore grandmother and fired a round at the stove. At the very moment I fired there was a loud crash. Lightning struck the chimney atop the house, streaked down the chimney and to the stove. The lid and draft door of the stove flew open and the stove was surrounded with electric blue momentarily. It scared the living hell out of me.

Grandmother said, "You see what happens when you break the rules?" And, chuckled wisely.

This took place more than 60 years ago and I can still see that stove buzzing blue just like it was yesterday.



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Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ

 
I know one person who has a lightning phobia! The moment it start raining he will hide! If it happend while driving - he will stop at any shop or any house and ask permission from the owner for shelter! If he is just a passenger - then he will beg from the driver to stop at any place to take shelter!
 
No, Steven, I don't. I learned my lesson. Don't break the rules!!!!

An acquaintance of mine was killed by lightning on a golf course. He was one of the original founders of Pizza Hut and was about 35 years of age when he was killed as best as I can recall. He took shelter under a tree during one of those Kansas thunderstorms I mentioned and that proved to be a fatal mistake. But, where on a golf course does one take shelter during a thunderstorm?

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Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ

 
I'm surprised by your friend's actions, Uncle Bill, because the fellow was obviously a fairly smart individual to be so successful at such a young age, and yet to seek shelter during a thunderstorm under a tree is something that I would have assumed everyone knows not to do. It seems to me that it would have been better to just wait the storm out in the car.
 
Steven, as I recall the fellow was out on the course and played a little too long -- too far away from the car and I think there was some decent sized hail, too.

I met that young man who was just 4 or 5 years younger than me when he was a sophomore at Wichita U. and working nights at the original Pizza Hut on East Kellogg St. in Wichita.

It was an old converted gas station, the kind that had the glass tanks on the top that you pumped up by hand if anybody here is old enough to remember those. It looked like a hut so naturally the kids called it Pizza Hut. There were three of them who started the venture on less than $500. I never thought they would take it to where it is today. But that's another story of how riches came knocking on old Uncle Bill's door and he told them to go away.

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Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ

 
I can relate, Uncle Bill. On at least two different occasions, I, too, turned my back on the opportunity to make big money. But, I really don't have any regrets (most of the time). And, by the way, I well remember the old glass-topped gas pumps. One of my grandmothers ran a general store in Baytown, Texas, that had one of those old pumps up front. What memories -- that was a time when people had time for one another; no one was ever too busy to help someone else; no one ever locked their doors or windows at night; and a stranger was someone you'd just not yet had the chance to befriend.

I'm really starting to sound old, aren't I? Next thing you know, I'll be wanting to tell the younger forumites how far I had to walk in the snow to get to school (the only problem is that it doesn't snow in east Texas).
 

Hello everyone, I know know one has ever heard of me but I have been reading your posts for sometime now. Also I recently ordered my first HI khukuri, and I can't wait until it arrives! Anyway, on the ball lighting subject, here is what I found in one of my many books.
(Many identities have been offered for ball lighting, including spheres of plasma, globes sustained by nuclear reaction, burning orbs of gas, forked lightning somehow compressed into a spherical form, and even tiny meteorites of antimatter. Today, Ohio scientists J.F. Corum and K.L. Corum are able to produce small balls of lightning in the laboratory using a process involving high- voltage radio frequency. Japanese scientists too can create plasma globes, but there is still much to discover regarding this enigmatic phenomenon.)
This is just a little of an artical that I have, but apparently ball lighting appears regularly in nature. Of particalur intrest to those of you in Texas. Just east of a town called Marfa in the direction of the Chinati Mountians on the mexican border there are supposed to be these ghost lights that resemble flickering yellow lanterns. They move in many directions very rapidly and do things that rule them out as headlights. Perhaps someone can check these lights out and let us know. Just remember to take your khukuri!
D

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Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.
 
Marfa was where the plane that scared me ( ----less ) turned out to have been sold and never reregistered, per the local narc deputy. It's pilot apparently got disoriented slightly and mistook me for the person he was to meet to do a little business with out in the middle of an Indian Reservation. After that incident I was never out there alone without industrial strength means to reach out and touch someone.
 
When on a golf course in a thunderstorm, the safest course of action is to hold a 1-iron over your head. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.

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When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.

 
My father is from Mission and I rember when I was about 13 we went there to visit my Uncle. On the way back we passed near Marfa and the whole time my father kept his gun on him. When I later asked him why his only reply was, " I just don't like that place, strange people live there." You seem familar w/ the area Rusty, just how strange it?


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Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.
 
That was a good line, David.

I have heard of but never seen the Ghost Lights of Marfa. A test pilot I worked with at Cessna was from Marfa -- naturally, he was a sailplane enthusiast!

Interesting stuff about the lightning. It seems to have a mind of its own and is fascinating.

Any more stories of guns, golf, khukuris, swords and lightning?

And riches lost?

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Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ

 
As a matter of fact, I do have another lightning story. A few years ago a co-worker was walking to his car during a thunderstorm, using an umbrella. Because he was downtown and surrounded by high-rise buildings, he was not overly concerned about the lightning. No one knows for sure exactly what happened, but there was a loud blast and lightning flash and this fellow was found unconscious seconds later, his umbrella fried. It seems to me that he probably did not take a direct hit because he did survive with no serious injuries. But, it also was evident that something serious struck that umbrella. The bottom line here seems to be that, during a severe thunderstorm, it's just best to stay indoors.

And to add insult to injury, the poor fellow who got hit had the further misfortune of having the last name of Rice, so from that day forward he was known as Rice Krispies.
 
I think I would have called him fried Rice. Here in Boise this summer I think we had about four peaple hit on the golf course by lighting. Lets see, metal spikes on the shoes sticking into the ground and a metal rod held high above your head.....yep, sounds like a heck of a good way to get knocked on your keyster during a thunder storm to me.
 
I just noticed that I wrongly spelled LIGHTNING as LIGHT"E"NING!!! ... but ... of course I can't update that spelling at the topic! Insyaa-Allaah! I hope Mr. Lightning won't show his anger on me!

Couple of years ago - I waited my son in my car during a heavy thunderstorm! - I think it was a traffic jam on the road just outside the school compound - around me was a heavy rain + lightning + thunder + flash flood ... I just don't know whether my name were in the list of Mr. Lightning's target or not! I felt as if I were in the middle of bombing target ... So scarry experience ... I might be the next one to be hit! Since I don't have any war @ battle experience (and I prefer not to have that sort of experience as well) - in this case some of you war veterans might be able to relate your personal experience ...

[This message has been edited by mohd (edited 28 November 1999).]
 
I know what you mean about the lighting rods. We had them on the house and barn as did most of the neighbors. Today with the price of copper and the cost to have it installed I guess most peaple figure the odds are in their favor and not worth the cost. We still put them on almost any tall building or place that holds potentially explosive material. We must have put 40 of them on top of a b-1 hanger last year.
 
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