St. Elmo's Fire

[Mighty_Emperor]

See also the Foo Fighters (not the band) thread:

forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=515
Link is obsolete. The current link is:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/foo-fighters.515/

Also the Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo's_fire

And the one on Saint Erasmus of Formiae (St. Elmo):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_of_Formia

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St. Elmo's Fire seen above Foothill area

Record Courier Staff Reports
February 9, 2005

We were away on vacation and my closest neighbor Leland Gefvert, plus others in his home at the time, were astonished to see what is described as follows.

It was a cold, blustery night, perfect for the electrical phenomenon that must have been St. Elmo's Fire.

Lee saw a bright white, blue tinged light from my windows and his first thought was someone had a flash light in the room.

This light was a flash, danced around a bit, and then disappeared. Better drive around, and see if anyone is at home, Lee said, when he arrived in front of the house it was dark.

So he went home and thought about the mystery. We are so fortunate to have wonderful neighbors like Lee and all the others around us.

We all look out for each other when someone is away on vacation, or just because.

The mystery has bothered Lee for quite a while, until he received his LST publication (Land Ship Tank). There was an article about St. Elmo's Fire, which described what could have been the light that night in my home.

During World War II, Lee served on a rather large ship called a Landing Ship Tank, also known to sailors, and the military as a large slow target.

You may have seen such ships as our soldiers landed at Normandy. The rear of this ship would let down, tanks, trucks, and men would disembark very near to shore.

Lee served aboard this kind of ship from 1944 to 1946 and has experienced permanent ear damage from the noise of the ship.

This year Lee will be 84 years old and has a wonderful memory. During the war, another country's captain, asked Lee, "why are you so strong in military might and weak at home?"

So just what is St. Elmo's Fire? It is an electrical disturbance that occurs under certain atmospheric conditions.

It is usually observed on ships and is considered as a portent of bad weather. It is also known to occur near, and around mountain tops such as the Sierra Nevada.

The flashing blue light that can illuminate a room holds no heat, it simply finds an object as a conductor. Sometimes, this magical light dances around a person's head, blades of grass, or horns of cattle.

The amount of electricity involved is not great enough to be dangerous.

St. Elmo was an early Christian martyr, also known as Eramus, who was tortured in a most gruesome way.

The word capstan comes from his torture. A capstan is a drum like apparatus for hoisting anchors or other weights by exerting traction upon a cable.

Because of his martyrdom, he became the patron saint of sailors. During rough weather, frightened seamen interpreted the blue flashing light on the tops of the masts as a sign of his protection.

The phenomenon, also known as corposant, was long regarded with superstitious awe.

The ghostly light often frightened people who did not understand where, or how it originated. It is sometimes, considered a blessing when seen, or has touched an object, or a home.

This is great news, a blessing is always welcome. However, I am rather glad we were not home, and the mystery is fully explained, or is it?

Source

 

[IamSundog]

Waaay back in the early 70s (insert favorite age joke here), on two occasions a couple of months apart, I sighted aircraft with odd electric-looking activity around it. They were ordinary-looking commercial passenger planes with bright white electrical “discharges” dancing around on their exterior surfaces.

At the time I considered it to be St. Elmo’s Fire, but now I'm not sure.

I remembered these sightings recently and wondered why, in all the years and the ten thousand planes I’ve seen since (I’m an astronomy hobbyist and look at the sky a lot), I’ve never seen this again. I looked up St. Elmo’s Fire, and what is described is a ghostly blue-ish glow, flickering gently and spreading or receding gradually, but fairly constant in brightness and position on the affected object. This is not what I saw. I’ve looked into other electrical phenomena affecting aircraft and haven’t found a description or video similar.

What I saw was patches of bright white, electric-looking light jumping and dancing around on the entire surface of the plane. The patches were large, maybe 5 to 15 feet across, and very ragged in shape, and there were many of them at any one instant. Each would quiver in position for maybe 1/2 second and then jump to another position, very rapidly and energetically, with thin threads of light connecting the patches. I saw no lightning-like bolts jumping out into the air surrounding the plane. The lights kept at it the entire time the planes were visible – about a minute apiece.

On both occasions it was very clear, early evening, just turning toward twilight, the sky still fairly bright, so the dancing light was quite bright.

I’m not claiming this as Fortean, per se, but does anybody know what this was? It was so startling in appearance, I would think it is something people would remark on. It must have been very dramatic for the passengers. And it does strike me as odd that I saw it twice within a few months, and never again.

 

[EnolaGaia]

There's a YouTube video illustrating St Elmo's Fire on a Boeing 767 airline. Unfortunately, the camera was only able to pick up the discharges (mini-lightning) and not the 'glow' / 'plasma' itself ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZaOaI51ejU

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's another one (AirBus A330). Like the one above, all the camera captured were the discharges ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmF8ln6Q218

 

[EnolaGaia]

... And here's a static photograph of St Elmo's Fire on an airplane's wingtip ...

meteoros.de/light/elmsfire.jpg
Link is dead. Here is the originally linked image, salvaged from the Wayback Machine ...

 

[IamSundog]

Thanks for the response and for your digging, EG. I had found those YouTube videos a few weeks back, and they don't look like what I saw. If I imagine what it looked like from inside the cockpit I would say that
(1) there would have been "blobs" of electricity dancing on or around the windshield MUCH more frequently - maybe every 3-5 seconds;
(2) instead of thin "tongues" of lightning that discharge for a second and then stop, as in the videos, there would have been large, extended "patches of electricity" (plasma?) that at times would have covered all or most of the windshield;
(3) the phenomenon was continuous; at any one time there were 2 to 5 major blobs present, covering maybe 10% of the plane's surface area and moving rapidly about.

The static photo you linked looks like descriptions I've read of St Elmos Fire - a ghostly glow surrounding the object, but more or less just staying put.

What I saw looked more like those "flicker flame" light bulbs people put out on holidays (here's some), except bright white light instead of dim orange.

Just 2 particularly severe cases of St Elmos?

Now that I try to imagine what it looked like from inside the plane, it must have been spectacular and frightening. So I would think it would be described somewhere, but what I read is the "ghostly glow" description. Also descriptions of static discharge - single bolts of lightning jumping between plane and air - and occasional descriptions of ball lightning chasing flight attendants down the aisle. Hence the suspicion that possibly I saw something more than passingly strange. Also the sky was very clear (I remember it as occuring on two very crisp autumn evenings), and I think St Elmo's and other electrical phenomenon are associated with clouds and electrical storms?

 

[ElishevaBarsabe]

Could be static discharge over a large surface area. Here's a quote:

"An aircraft charged or exposed to fields due only to triboelectric charging may develop corona and limited streamering at its extremities, but it will not trigger lightning. A vehicle such as the B-2 with its large effective area is vulnerable to static charging. The B-2 is thus vulnerable to significant surface static discharge damage if the static discharge system is not optimized. These in-service issues for the B-2 underscore the criticality of a comprehensive design approach with composite materials and finishes to minimize static discharge occurrences."
see http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/2001-01-2933

 

[IamSundog]

Sounds like maybe this could be it. Maybe plane design has improved since then so that this doesnt happen any more.

 

[EnolaGaia]

There's additional info and discussion in this IHTM thread:

St. Elmo's Fire? ? ?
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/st-elmos-fire.30430/

 

[EnolaGaia]

​

Pilots aboard Hurricane Hunter plane chasing a winter storm experience strange phenomenon

An experienced hurricane hunting crew chasing a winter storm came across a far different discovery this past weekend. In what is know as St. Elmo's fire, footage of the forking electric discharge was captured on Saturday by pilots as the spectacle flashed throughout the cockpit.

The video, captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aircraft Operations Center (AOC), was taken as pilots flew across the Atlantic Ocean amid thunderstorms. NOAA deployed the hunters to support a project analyzing ocean surface winds in winter storms over the North Atlantic.

The flight took place as Storm Dennis chugged along in the North Atlantic approaching Ireland and the United Kingdom. ...

FULL STORY (With Video):
https://www.accuweather.com/en/seve...er-storm-experience-strange-phenomenon/684864

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's a more illustrative photo of Saint Elmo's Fire discharges as seen from the flight deck of an aircraft flying through stormy weather.

​

ST ELMO’S FIRE LIGHT SHOW

A pilot has captured the dramatic light show from a St Elmo’s Fire event while flying through intense thunderstorms.

Christiaan van Heijst, a pilot with freight airline Cargolux flying Boeing 747s explains that he encountered a huge front of active thunderstorms over mid-Atlantic near the Equator.

“There was no way to fly all around this squall line of entangled thunderstorms that stretched across our route for hundreds of miles to either side, Mr van Heijst said.

“Coming closer, the radar provided us with a more detailed image of the interior of the clouds ahead, enabling us to plan a route through this maze of violent weather.”

“Suddenly the air around our plane seemed to turn dark blue and purple but actually it was our own plane that was starting to glow ever stronger.

“A plasma of purple and pink surrounded the fuselage, wings, and engines and created a surrealistic atmosphere.

“The rims of the [cockpit] windows suddenly start to glow bright and the first sparks danced over our windows, growing in frequency fast.” ...

FULL STORY:
https://www.airlineratings.com/news/st-elmos-fire-light-show/

 

[Yithian]

There's a YouTube video illustrating St Elmo's Fire on a Boeing 767 airline. Unfortunately, the camera was only able to pick up the discharges (mini-lightning) and not the 'glow' / 'plasma' itself ...

I've been reading a little about St Elmo's fire and came across the case of BA-009 in 1982. The 747 flew through an ash cloud from the eruption of Mount Galunggung in Indonesia and experieneced a litany of woes as a result—including St Elmo's fire reducing cockpit visibility significantly. The captain—who could only be British or Australian—described the subsequent landing experience in memorable terms :

As Flight 009 approached Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, the crew found seeing anything through the windscreen difficult, and made the approach almost entirely on instruments, despite reports of good visibility. The crew decided to fly the instrument landing system, but the vertical guidance system was inoperative, so they were forced to fly with only the lateral guidance as the first officer monitored the airport's distance-measuring equipment (DME). He then called out how high they should be at each DME step along the final approach to the runway, creating a virtual glide slope for them to follow. Moody described it as "a bit like negotiating one's way up a badger's arse." Although the runway lights could be made out through a small strip of the windscreen, the landing lights on the aircraft seemed to be inoperable. After landing, the flight crew found taxiing impossible, due to glare from apron floodlights, which made the already sandblasted windscreen opaque.

He had earlier made this announcement to the passengers in a tone of remarkable sang froid:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

Source
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_009

 

[Floyd]

Seen it loads;