Monday, March 17, 2008

Can UFOs Be Explained By Natural Phenomena?


It Was Aliens

“It was aliens, I seen’em.”

Testimonials and allure surrounding the sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects and other strange phenomena have been with us for at least decades.

Debates and ideas as to the source or cause of UFOs and UFO sightings continues to rage on as ferociously today as it did back in the 1960s. Is there really a government “Area 51”? Does extra-terrestrial life truly exist? Is mankind the only higher intelligence life form? Are spirits, ghosts, angels, demons and super-human life forms real? These are but a scant few of the questions asked by millions of people earth wide.

More Recently
But more recently, astronomers and scientists from multiple fields have given attention to other, more plausible explanations for UFOs and sighting events, like those that often take place in Tepoztlan, Mexico, beyond the casual “weather balloon”, satellite, small aircraft, reflections of moonlight or other “weather phenomenon” basic explanations for these so-called events.

To generate a visual phenomenon over such a widespread area as a city or extensive country-side area would require tremendous amounts of radiant energy within the visible spectrum. There are natural phenomena which indeed could generate, not only the necessary quantities of energy, but also do so within the needed frequencies for visibility by the naked human eye.

Natural Phenomena
The following five conditions are considered to be natural phenomena capable of accounting for unexplained “sightings” and other “UFO-related” events:

St. Elmo’s fire
Not an uncommon sight aboard ships at sea, this unique phenomenon appears as an eerie greenish glow or flame-like form of energy that crawls along masts, railings flagpoles and other wooden or metallic surfaces. St. Elmo's Fire has also been called by the names St. Nicholas and St. Hermes.

The Aurora Borealis
Most commonly called the “Northern Lights” this atmospheric phenomenon is visible in the northernmost latitudes of the earth. Russia, Canada, Chile, Argentina and the Scandinavian countries all regularly report visibility of the Northern Lights or Southern lights.

The Aurora Australis
Near the southernmost latitudes of the earth the Aurora Australis, like its northern hemisphere equivalent, the Aurora Australis is visible in the late evening skies of southern Australia and the Antarctic continent as reported by scientific crews stationed in the region.

Earthquake Lights
A more recently identified phenomenon called earthquake lights result from the sudden massive release of energy during an earthquake or tremor. These dull reddish waves of light, brilliant sparkling balls or dimly lit flashes are more likely to be visible during quakes in very late evening hours or when the earthquake occurs at night as they have in Lima, Peru and Cali, Colombia.

Volcanic Eruption-related Phenomena
Another more recently identified phenomenon is the visible occurrence of lightning flashes or other visible phenomenon immediately before, during or after a volcanic eruption. Lately, during eruptions of fairly active volcanoes such as Tungurahua in Ecuador or Galeras Volcano in Pasto, Colombia (pictured above), visible phenomena have been witnessed by hundreds of people from many different walks of life.

Since many, if not most, of these phenomena occur frequently in South America and make for interesting, locally-observed events, in upcoming installments on this topic we will delve a bit further into these phenomena, their causes, explanations, results and some eye-witness accounts and quotes related to these events.


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 80 countries. Get your FREE E-books,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" or "7 Techniques to Motivate Your English Language Learners and Make Your Classes More Dynamic" by requesting the title you want at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com


2 comments:

Atrueoriginall said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Atrueoriginall said...

Sure, all of those things exist. We see people present them all of the time. And then there's the truth. The Crème de la Crème of UFO sightings that nobody can find reason to account for anything but an alien space craft.

In a big sense, your article is called disinformation because it is one sided. One must entrench themselves in the subject such as a hobby in order to find the real truth. It cannot be done by simply surfing the Internet for a few days or even a year.