Talk:Earthquake light

message: Earthquake_cloud → Earthquake_light — Regarding this issue I strongly disagree. This are two distinct phenomena, even though the cause is most likely the same; the effects cloud/light are evidently different in nature. That merits two separate articles, unless a more comprehensive article integrates them such as Earthquake_signs for instance. Abestrobi (talk) 00:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested merge

message: The phenomenon described here is in no way 'similar to aurora borealis'. It is the same as a circumhorizontal arc, an atmospheric optical effect that has been described and explained thoroughly, and that appears in many places. It is caused by the refraction of light in certain types of clouds, when the sun is high in the sky. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumhorizontal_arc :) 
145.23.254.155 (talk) 08:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Circumhorizontal arc

message: I agree with the comment from 145.23.254.155 above, the youtube videos linked by this article shows (clearly in my opinion) a Circumhorizontal arc. See the wikipedia article for a good image of one and see how well it matches the videos. See also http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/cha2.htm for details. Note that the purported time of the videos was around 14:00 local time May 12 at a latitude of 34 degrees North (Tanshui is at 34°35′N 105°44′E).
If you plug that data into http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi you will find the Sun's elevation was between 63 and 68 degrees. This is entirely consistent with the observations: sun must be above 58 degrees (yes); the arc appears red closest to the sun and bluish further away (yes); the arc appears horizontal (yes); the arc appears 44 degrees away from the sun (67 minus 44 is 23 degrees above horizon, which looks about right).
The text in the article has a "citation needed" tag for the claim that it shows a circumhorizontal arc. The above should be sufficient for an intelligent layperson to at least verify that it is not a mysterious phenomenon. I do not know how else one could obtain a reliable source for the same. The paragraph appears to give weight (implicitly) to a connection with the earthquake, when I do not believe there is a reliable source. Here is the paragraph:
On May 12, 2008, 30 minutes prior to the Sichuan Earthquake, a cell phone captured footage of multi-colored clouds in the sky (see external link below). The footage was uploaded to Youtube[5]. There is also footage from Meixian, Shaanxi province approximately 550km northeast of epicenter [6] recorded 10 minutes before the event. However, the footage appears to show a circumhorizontal arc, which is caused by refraction of the sun's light through ice particles in a cirrus cloud, and is similar to a rainbow.[citation needed]
I feel it should be removed or substantially rewritten. Opinions?
-84user (talk) 15:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation for videos showing a Circumhorizontal arc 

message: No one discussed the proposed merging of Earthquake Lights with Earthlights so I took the liberty of merging them as it's been a suggesting for a long time. I think they are more commonly called Earthlights so I made this the main article. If anyone objects then open a discussion. Cyberia23 00:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think Earthquake Lights have anything to do with Will-o-wisps which I thought were supposed to be ghosts or faeries of legend. I didn't add the "Other Names" section, someone else did. Cyberia23 22:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging with Earthlights

message: Is it worth adding a link to the entry for Paul Devereux?  He is one of the most cited authors on the subject in terms of identification of earthquake lights/earthlights as UFOs etc.  What do you think? DiabolicalMasterspy 20:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paul Devereux link? 

message: Some people have reported these lights during the earthquake off the coast. It's not verifiable but there is a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNy6YQB8nnw which supposedly has footage of the lights. They're visible somewhere around the 48 second mark.--Zeph1 16:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earthquake in Peru 

message: Youtube videos show 'things' (rainbows or Aurora-borealis) the 12 may 2008 before the China (Sichuan) earthquake :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u43I4YRMmDM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQHY-0c1hYE
The 05/02/08 7 days before there was a Volcano Erupts in Chile -after 9,000 years- meaning that earth activity is at its roof
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/photogalleries/volcano-photos/index.html  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.27.60.48 (talk) 10:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Before 05/12/08 Sichuan earthquake 

message: I agree with the proposal to merge these articles. Earthquake cloud should redirect to Earthquake light as it seems that they are the same phenomenon. It seems that when the earthquake is in the night, people talk about lights and when quake in is the day time, people talk about "cloud", but the "cloud" seems to produce light and is not a defraction of other light source like in a rainbow. Lpele (talk) 15:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. I oppose this proposal, especially if earthquake cloud is redirected to earthquake light. They are not nessecarily the same thing, see Talk:Earthquake cloud. It appears that earthquake clouds are not always luminous, and earthquake lights don't always involve clouds. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 20:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging with Earthquake cloud

message: The following sentence is found in the History section
Records of earthquakes that were accompanied by lights can be found as far back as 373 BC in ancient Greek writings, that "immense columns of flame" foretold the earthquake that destroyed the cities of Helike and Boura[citation needed]. 
I have found an indirect reference to the destruction of Helike and Boura, but the portent seems to have been a comet rather than earthquake lights. (There may still be some other reference to what might have been earthquake lights.)
The citation was found on page 289 of Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision Macmillan (1950).
Statement in text: "The Hindu book of Varahasanhita sees in the meteorites portents of devastation by fire and earthquake." (2)
(2) Frazer, Aftermath (supplement to The Golden Bough) (1936), p. 312.
Two Greek cities, Bura and Helice, were destroyed by earthquake and a tidal wave and swallowed by the earth and sea in the year -373, when a comet shone in the sky.
RobertFritzius (talk) 22:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indirect citation for destruction of Helike and Boura 

message: Somebody just haul off an do it. We don't need two articles for Earthquake Lights and Earthquake Clouds, and who knows what other weird in-the-sky phenomena somebody might create another redundant article for.--Mike18xx (talk) 00:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge/Move/Redirect to Earthquake Weather 

message: After the August 17, 1999 Izmit Earthquake, there were countless reports of a bright white light shooting out of the ground coinciding with the earthquake. The TV channels on the scene right after the catastrophe were interviewing people reporting a large column of flame and a very bright ray over the sea. Fishermen reported that their nets had melted. Another common testimony was that the stars in the sky "jolted" (resembling a momentary distortion of the visibility of the entire night sky). The subsequent reports of an exceptionally clear night sky or numerous sightings of groups of shooting stars are probably related to the power outage, though it is known that the partially cloudy sky completely cleared within seconds after the quake (maybe due to the heavy winds reportedly accompanying the white light, or some magnetic phenomenon).
Okans (talk) 18:25, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earthquake in Turkey 

message: First, don't come saying "You don't give proof" because that's why I posted this. This articles voice makes me feel like i was reading a transcript for a conspiracy theory/paranormal show. Any one know how this could we could get rid of some of the pseudoscience here, or at least make it clear to readers? This isn't the kind of content you expect from wikipedia. WikiWisePowder (talk) 20:35, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Just noticed that this article is even labeled as interesting to project paranormal and skepticism on the talk page, but there's no "warning" in the article. WikiWisePowder (talk) 20:38, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something feels wrong about this articles tone 

message: I was a geologist in Cape Town when this quake occurred, after dark. It was centred in the Cape Fold Belt, one of the greatest accumulations of nearly pure quartzite on the planet- thousands of square kilometres of it, thousands of metres thick. There were many reports of lines of lights appearing along major bedding planes in remote mountainous locations, far from buildings, fences, power cables, telephone lines, gas pipelines or the like. Many bushfires erupted along the lines where the lights were seen. It is a remote possibility that the fires were started by rockfalls but I have been a mountaineer for over fifty years and have never seen or heard of a blaze started by falling rocks. I believe that a piezoelectrical effect was involved. Quartz is know for its tendency to generate these effects but it is also a good electrical insulator. It seems to me possible that great wads of quartzite, shocked to the core, generated instantaneous static electrical charges that could not readily be dissipated through the great mass of non-conducting country rocks but leaped from one isolated body to another across the insulating bedding planes. Prof. Arthur Fuller, who was trying to conduct electrical logging down boreholes the day before the earthquake, reported "crazy readings". He suspected that his equipment was faulty and quit his work. For what it is worth, I believe that similar phenomena are responsible for ball lightning. The unequilibrated surge of electrons into (or out of) the ground from a normal strike into what is essentially a giant semi-conductor creates a static electrical field that ionizes the air and produces balls of reactive plasma that follow the attempts by the static bolus to find a way of "escape". This explains why ball lightning can pass through glass. The field is the same on both sides because it come from below in the rock. The fact that ball lightning can pass through glass is fatal to the theory of "atomization of silicon" but nobody seems to have acknowledged that.... Captainbeefart (talk) 12:53, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting, but you misunderstand the purpose of article talk pages. Per the WP:Talk page guidelines: "" More specifically: the article talk pages are "" WP is not a blog, nor does it publish original research. Observations of possible phenomena are best reported in the appropriate journals. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:18, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

text: Essentially, yes – Wikipedia "dismisses", as a matter of fundamental policy, pretty much "". Your consternation arises from a misunderstanding of the nature of an encyclopedia, and how encyclopedias differ from journalism, history, and other forms of information determination and archival. We don't do oral history, we don't do "first report" (journalism), we don't do original thought, we don't do speculation. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia strives to present human knowledge as currently best understood. So yes, if in 1610 Galileo had walked in and said: "I saw the strangest thing last night", sorry, no, we couldn't use that; he would have to be published first. Nor do we rely on first-hand reports, neither of VIPs nor little boys. If you have something to contribute to human knowledge you will have do it elsewhere, as Wikipedia is not a forum. If you have further questions please ask at the WP:Help desk. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 07:35, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

text: That is an intriguing idea. But, alas, hardly encyclopedic. You could mention it at one of the "Village pump" pages; perhaps it might lead to something. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:11, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Worcester Earthquake, 26 September 1969 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: As abundant documentation is present from the recent earthquake, the skeptical over-tone is no longer adequate. The article should be focused on feasible explanations and the skepticism be removed from the header. אילן שמעוני (talk) 15:46, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should be updated in view of Mexico Sept. 2021 documentation 

message: Considering there is legitimate documentation on Earthquake Light, including video evidence from several different sources and events, how is it considered "Fringe Science" whilst Ball Lightning is only associated with "Unsolved problems in physics" and "Unexplained phenomena" despite a lack of any video evidence of its existence? NameAlwaysTaken (talk) 22:42, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  How is Earthquake Light considered Fringe Science but Ball Lightning isn't? 

message: An article from guardian has an embedded video of the aftershock happened at 20.02.2023. Around Minute 0:27 the phenomena can be clearly seen via dashcam footage 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/20/turkey-new-6-point-4-magnitude-earthquake-hatay 2001:A61:B7F:A201:2DD7:46BC:A398:4729 (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Video Evidence in Turkey / Syria Earthquake Aftershock 

message: is there really needed a section with quotes from 2016 on skepticism about this even after the page has been updated with abundant more evidence? 2600:6C47:A03F:C443:9DB:752F:8F12:FAB5 (talk) 02:27, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I would support removal of the section, or perhaps skepticism being folded into a "History of observation" or the Possible explanations section as superseded. Preferably I would wait until more authoritative sources, like the 2023 study by Xie et al. from Remote Sensing that I added, are added as well, as the current news sources are based on "unverified" videos and can be challenged similarly to UFO videos. 93 (talk) 01:35, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  do skeptics really need a section?