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Green Flash Experience

Red Siegfried

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Red Siegfried
Joined
Jun 17, 2004
Messages
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Reading the article on mirages, I got remembering...

Back when I was about 18, I thought I saw what was called the green flash phenomena, only (memory being unreliable as I was just waking up at the time) it wasn't exactly as described.

The way I saw it was that I was just waking up and suddenly there was a tremendous, noiseless, flash of light through our front picture window. I couldn't tell the color but it was similar in intensity to a camera flashbulb. I don't really remember the color. The birds in their cage over in the next room went crazy, fluttering and screeching. I thought for sure there was some kind of large explosion and I would be hearing the bang soon (a nuclear strike did come to mind).

I sprang out of bed and went to the window, but saw nothing other than the sun just coming up over the horizon to indicate what it was. Then I remembered people who had seen green flashes and thought maybe that's what it was. But based on the descriptions I have read, I don't think it was the same thing.

The thought occurred to me that maybe it was a flash or reflection off a passing car ... and I simply remember it as being brighter than it actually was.

But the light was so bright, it doesn't seem to fit the description.

For those who don't know what a green flash is, here's an explanation:

http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/

Has anyone else ever experienced anything like I did and do you think it could be anything to do with green flashes or some other kind of atmospheric phenomenon?
 
Doesn't sound like the green flash

I've seen the green flash twice -- once at sunrise, the other at sunset -- and basically it was nothing more that the last/first bit of sun appearing over the horizon as decidedly green (think xenon streetlight). It wasn't appreciably brighter than the rest of the sun's surface, or a true flash like you describe. (Granted, this doesn't make me an expert on the green flash phenomenon, so someone with more experience might be able to provide more info.)

The nearest thing to what you describe that I personally experienced was almost certainly associated with lightning. A couple of years ago, I was outside with my two kids as a thundercloud approached. I was facing them, and they were looking over my shoulder. Suddenly everything around me -- ground, trees, the faces of my kids -- got lit up with this bright salmon glow. The source seemed to be behind me. Before I recovered my wits enough to turn around, it vanished, and my daughter quickly asked "What was that?" A few seconds later we heard a thunderclap, so we ran inside the house. Afterward my daughter (who was 11 at the time) described it as a blob of light that hung maybe 20 feet off the ground. My son, who is 6 years younger but possesses a more precise vocabulary, described it as a "parallelogram." Whatever it was, I'm assuming it was some form of lightning or lightning-related effect.
 
I saw it at sunset in San Diego a couple of months ago. I had on crappy sunglasses and my friend, who didn't see it, had on Raybans. I wonder if that was a factor.
 
I seem to remember it being a clear day, but whether clear or just mostly clear, I suppose it could have been lightning. Stranger things have happened. There was no thunderclap, however. Right now I'm leaning more toward a very bright reflection of the sun off a passing car or something, but it just seemed so weird at the time. I wonder if it were a car, how many times that same thing had happened and I just wasn't there to witness it. Those birds did tend to go ape for no reason sometimes.
 
Do you have any power substations near you?

I had a similar experience (Which I've talked about on here) where blinding white light cut across a fields in true X-Files style, noiseless too.

Turned out to be a substation arcing. It was reported in the paper the next day. Very VERY bright.
 
lister said:
Do you have any power substations near you?

I had a similar experience (Which I've talked about on here) where blinding white light cut across a fields in true X-Files style, noiseless too.

Turned out to be a substation arcing. It was reported in the paper the next day. Very VERY bright.
Click to expand...

I saw something like that once. It was around 1 in the morning and I swear I could see blue sky, it was so bright. Lasted several seconds, too, quite impressive.
 
My father was driving with me in the front passenger seat one night about 15 years ago. It was full dark and about 9:30pm. As we pulled into our driveway, the whole area behind our house and the neighbor's houses was lit up by a blinding, rather longish flash, of pure blue-white light. There is a strip of woods back there and the whole area was brightly lit as if the world's biggest flash bulb went off, except it seemed to last a bit longer than a flash would have.

It did not blind us, mind you, because our own house blocked the light source. The light appeared to come from the right, somewhere behind our house to the right, and possibly from back in the woods. It brilliantly illuminated everything to the left as far as we could see, the whole neighbor's back yard was stark white, the woods all the way over to the next street on our left were pure white, and it illuminated from the ground up to the tops of the trees, which were very tall pines. The tops of the trees visible well above our house were also lit up strongly.

We sat in the car stunned because we had heard absolutely nothing, while expecting an incredible thunderclap. We got out of the car muttering and looking around and up into the sky. The sky was clear and the only sound was the usual summertime night sounds of insects, etc.

No clue what it could possibly have been. Saw nothing unusual behind our house, and the dog apparently remained asleep.

There is a short path through the woods to a house behind the strip of woods. The house is on the right hand end of the woods. I walked that path the next day and found nothing but ordinary woods and and ordinary yard behind that house.
 
LTC8K6 said:
My father was driving with me in the front passenger seat one night about 15 years ago. It was full dark and about 9:30pm. As we pulled into our driveway, the whole area behind our house and the neighbor's houses was lit up by a blinding, rather longish flash, of pure blue-white light. There is a strip of woods back there and the whole area was brightly lit as if the world's biggest flash bulb went off, except it seemed to last a bit longer than a flash would have.

It did not blind us, mind you, because our own house blocked the light source. The light appeared to come from the right, somewhere behind our house to the right, and possibly from back in the woods. It brilliantly illuminated everything to the left as far as we could see, the whole neighbor's back yard was stark white, the woods all the way over to the next street on our left were pure white, and it illuminated from the ground up to the tops of the trees, which were very tall pines. The tops of the trees visible well above our house were also lit up strongly.

We sat in the car stunned because we had heard absolutely nothing, while expecting an incredible thunderclap. We got out of the car muttering and looking around and up into the sky. The sky was clear and the only sound was the usual summertime night sounds of insects, etc.

No clue what it could possibly have been. Saw nothing unusual behind our house, and the dog apparently remained asleep.

There is a short path through the woods to a house behind the strip of woods. The house is on the right hand end of the woods. I walked that path the next day and found nothing but ordinary woods and and ordinary yard behind that house.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a bolide to me -- a bright meteor that burns out with a brilliant flash. I've seen those a few times, none quite as bright as you describe, but still impressive. (The clear sky sounds like a pretty good clue that this is what it was.) Was it by any chance around August 11/12th? If so, that would coincide with the Perseid shower, which has been known to produce a bolide or two duing the course of the night. (I've seen one myself, it was bright bluish-green.)
 
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I bet that's what I saw years ago while "parking" one summer evening with a nice young lady. It was a convertible and we'd driven into an open field. Beautiful starry night and I'd leaned back and briefly closed my eyes. Suddenly there was a tremendous bright flash like a flashbulb going off just above my head. Of course I immediately opened my eyes and saw....just the night sky. The lady turned to me and shouted, "What was THAT?" "I don't know, my eyes were closed" I said, and she replied that her eyes were closed as well. I've seen plenty of meteors and generally there's a nice ionized trail lasting a second or two. Not this time- maybe it was headed right toward us? (And yeah, it may well have been around the time for the Perseides.) Good thing neither of us was superstitious.

Green flash? Much different. I saw it once in Carriacou at sunset. The folks who ran the guesthouse where I was staying insisted that if you drank enough Jack iron rum (around 160 proof) you'd see the Green Flash a ,ot more often!
 
I'm sorry!

I say this because my friends and I may have created similar "unexplicable flashes of white" to a lot of my friend's neighbors.

My friend recently obtained what I can only describe as some manner of hand held flood light (with a tiny light for "indoor use" on the bottom of the handle). It is massive, weighs a not insigificant amount, and it emits enough light to be hot, like HOT hot, if you are within a few meters of it. Do not stare into it, for that shall be the last thing you see, for a few minutes anyway. Well, we decided to go outside at night with this thing for a little... test. My friend lives on the very outskirts of a town that is itself "outskirts", so it is very wooded and the houses are seperated pretty far. Anyway, he shines the thing into the woods near their house and the whole thing is lit up like the freakin' sun. Shine it into the air and you get a huge visible cone of light bouncing off the suddenly visible dust in the air back at ya. (I wanted a nice big cloud and a batarang at the time.) Anyway, at some point he decides to aim the thing at the windows of neighbors and just holds it there for about 10 seconds on a few distant houses. One of them apparently had an army of peacocks (as I later found out from my friend) who suddenly freak out and start meowing (which I didn't realize peacocks did) or some noise similiar to it anyway.

Well, that was fun but now I'm wondering if the neighbors thought that some aliens were invading.
 
A similar phenomenon happened to me. I used to live in an upstairs apartment, built over a barn. I was working on the computer one evening, and thought for sure I'd gone blind. The computer was parked in front of a large picture window that faced (generally) the western horizon.

The funny part of the story? I had finished watching "The Day After," that silly 1980s nuclear holocaust movie, and instantly imagined that Columbus, Ohio had been nuked. The light was that bright.
 
LTC8K6 said:
My father was driving with me in the front passenger seat one night about 15 years ago. It was full dark and about 9:30pm. As we pulled into our driveway, the whole area behind our house and the neighbor's houses was lit up by a blinding, rather longish flash, of pure blue-white light. There is a strip of woods back there and the whole area was brightly lit as if the world's biggest flash bulb went off, except it seemed to last a bit longer than a flash would have.

It did not blind us, mind you, because our own house blocked the light source. The light appeared to come from the right, somewhere behind our house to the right, and possibly from back in the woods. It brilliantly illuminated everything to the left as far as we could see, the whole neighbor's back yard was stark white, the woods all the way over to the next street on our left were pure white, and it illuminated from the ground up to the tops of the trees, which were very tall pines. The tops of the trees visible well above our house were also lit up strongly.

We sat in the car stunned because we had heard absolutely nothing, while expecting an incredible thunderclap. We got out of the car muttering and looking around and up into the sky. The sky was clear and the only sound was the usual summertime night sounds of insects, etc.

No clue what it could possibly have been. Saw nothing unusual behind our house, and the dog apparently remained asleep.

There is a short path through the woods to a house behind the strip of woods. The house is on the right hand end of the woods. I walked that path the next day and found nothing but ordinary woods and and ordinary yard behind that house.
Click to expand...
Yes, that certainly sounds like a meteor. I've seen a few that were easily bright enough to read by...for a few seconds! It's an unforgettable experience.
 
Stellafane said:
I've seen the green flash twice -- once at sunrise, the other at sunset -- and basically it was nothing more that the last/first bit of sun appearing over the horizon as decidedly green (think xenon streetlight). It wasn't appreciably brighter than the rest of the sun's surface, or a true flash like you describe. (Granted, this doesn't make me an expert on the green flash phenomenon, so someone with more experience might be able to provide more info.)
Click to expand...

I've seen reports that some claim a "true" green flash is significantly brighter than the just appearing or just disappearing sun, but I have no experience with that. I have seen what I call "pseudo green flashes" quite a number of times. These occured when the sun sets on the western ocean horizon. I would watch the sun until only the faintest sliver of the upper limb was visible, and then view the last 5-10 seconds of the sunset with binoculars (do NOT do this unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing ... you may permanently damage your eyesight otherwise). About 1 time out of 5, the wispy, refracted blob would turn green for about a second immediately before disappearing. I would guess that someone observing without binoculars would not have been able to see it.

It is quite plausible that the phenomena happens at varying degrees all the time ... moderately frequently it's barely visible with assisting optics but not strong enough to be seen by the casual observer; on rare occasions it's strong enough that it's visible with the nakes eye; and very, very rarely it's strong enough to produce a flash that is noticeably brighter than the upper limb ... the "wow" kind.

However, none of these would be anything like the phenomenon of the OP.

- Timothy
 
I've worked on ships since about 1995 and I'd agree with Timothy's assessment. Actually,the OP's link looks like it should answer his own question.
 
Gotta go with the bolide hypothesis too.

I've always wanted to see the green flash but never did manage to catch one, even when living in an otherwise uninhabited region on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with literally no other lights and essentially perfect horizons on every side -- ocean to the east and Currituck Sound to the west.

Ah well.
 
There are no power substations nearby that could have arced, but that's interesting, I've never actually seen that happen. Like I said, my hypothesis right now was that it was a very bright reflection from a passing car, but it could just as easily have been lightning or even something as rare as an exploding meteor.

I wish I could remember the date that it happened. I know it was 1990. But if I knew anyone else from that area anymore I could ask them if they were awake at that early hour and saw the same thing. I sometimes think it could have been my imagination, but I'm pretty sure I was fully awake when I jumped out of bed and when I heard those birds going crazy. So I'm fairly sure it really happened. What it was ... don't know.

But these are all interesting ideas.

I would have to conclude it wasn't a green flash, since it doesn't fit the description of one at all. Maybe I'll figure it out someday.
 
Apparently there were several reported bolides (a.k.a. "fireballs") worldwide in 1990, on the following dates: March 24, August 21 and 22 (perhaps the last two were the same one, reported in different time zones; if not, they were probably late Perseids), September 14 (over Germany/Czechoslovakia, so probably not yours), September 24, October 13 (Czech/Poland), October 21, November 22 (probably a Taurid). Obviously, not all of them were visible everywhere in the world. Any of those dates ring a bell, by any chance?
 
Memory being unreliable, I'm fairly sure it happened summer of 1990. It might have been August, but I just can't say for sure. By the way, I was in SE Wisconsin at the time.
 
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