These emerge naturally from the Earth's own processes and, though poorly understood, have long been observed. The link between earthquakes and unusual light phenomena, for instance, is noted in an old Japanese poem. The earth speaks softly to the mountain which trembles and lights the sky. However, there is still no adequate, confirmed scientific explanation of the natural mechanisms that produce, shape and sustain EQLs and BL - their physics still elude us. Even what we might view as common lightning has not yet yielded up all its secrets.
Some light phenomena are even more challenging.
I had a shocking experience in May 1967 when I witnessed a vertical, door-shaped rectangle of pulsing orange light come literally out of the blue. IT flew over Bromly Common in Kent and came to a halt several hundred feet above the ground before gradually transforming its shape and then dissolving. The first aspect of this observation that shocked me was that the crisp light-form, with its perfectly regular sides and sharp corners, could not be explained by science and so shouldn't have happened. For several years now, the 2,500 residents have reported seeing lights in the sky - lights that cannot be explained. Using extraordinary earthlight footage and expert opinion, tonight Equinox travels to Marfa, and to other earthlight spots in Mexico, Norway, and the Australian Outback, to witness these investigations that may take science into a new era - the era of Identified Flying Objects.