NASA probes 'electric zap' mystery photo:Former astronaut wowed by photo

World Net Daily ^ | February 5, 2003 | Joe Kovacs

[gitmo]

"Wow."

That was astronaut Tammy Jernigan's stunned reaction last night when she viewed a photo of what appears to be space shuttle Columbia getting zapped by a purplish electrical bolt shortly before it disintegrated Saturday morning.


Former astronaut Tammy Jernigan

"It certainly appears very anomalous," Jernigan told the San Francisco Chronicle. "We sure will be very interested in taking a very hard look at this."

The photo was one of five captured by an amateur astronomer in San Francisco who routinely snaps pictures of shuttles when they pass over the Bay area.

The pictures were taken just seven minutes before Columbia's fatal demise.

The Chronicle reports that top investigators of the disaster are now analyzing the startling photograph to try to solve the mystery.

The photographer continues to request his name be withheld, adding he would not release the image publicly until NASA has a chance to study it.

"[The photos] clearly record an electrical discharge like a lightning bolt flashing past, and I was snapping the pictures almost exactly ... when the Columbia may have begun breaking up during re-entry," the photographer originally told the paper Saturday night.

Late yesterday, the space agency sent Jernigan – a former shuttle flyer and now manager at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories – to the astronomer's home to view the image, and have the Nikon camera brought to Houston today.

It was slated to be flown to the Johnson Space Center by a NASA T-38 jet this morning.

Jernigan reportedly asked the astronomer about the f-stop setting on his lens, and how long he kept the shutter open – apparently some four to six seconds. A tripod was used to steady the camera, and the shutter was triggered manually.

"In the critical shot," states the Chronicle, "a glowing purple rope of light corkscrews down toward the plasma trail, appears to pass behind it, then cuts sharply toward it from below. As it merges with the plasma trail, the streak itself brightens for a distance, then fades."

"I couldn't see the discharge with my own eyes, but it showed up clear and bright on the film when I developed it," the photographer previously said. "But I'm not going to speculate about what it might be."

David Perlman, science editor for the Chronicle, called the photos "indeed puzzling."

"They show a bright scraggly flash of orange light, tinged with pale purple, and shaped somewhat like a deformed L," he wrote.

Space shuttle Columbia's rollout to the launchpad (NASA photo)

Jernigan no longer works for NASA, though she's a veteran of five shuttle missions in the 1990s. Ironically, on her final flight, the orbiter's pilot was Rick Husband, who was at the helm at 9 a.m. EST Saturday when Columbia broke apart during re-entry into the atmosphere.

"He was one of the finest people I could ever hope to know," Jernigan said.

According to her NASA biography, Jernigan graduated from Stanford in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in physics. She went on to earn master's degrees in engineering science and astronomy from Stanford and UC-Berkeley respectively. She also holds a doctorate in space physics and astronomy from Rice University.

She's spent over 63 days above the Earth, completing 1,000 orbits, and having walked in space for nearly eight hours during her final mission aboard shuttle Discovery in 1999.

Before flying on shuttles, she was a research scientist in the theoretical studies branch of NASA Ames Research Center, working on the study of bipolar outflows in the region of star formations, gamma ray bursters and shock-wave phenomena in the interstellar medium.

Regarding the Columbia disaster, the space agency is additionally investigating reports of possible remnants found in the West, including California and Arizona.

"Debris early in the flight path would be critical because that material would obviously be near the start of the events," said Michael Kostelnik, a NASA spaceflight office deputy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[gitmo]

Alternative to meteor and foam theory?

[Bogey78O]

So where's the photo?

[Poohbah]

Or it could be a SYMPTOM of a problem induced by a meteor or foam impact on the TPS.

[ez]

The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and State Council have "specially allocated" $10 billion to implement a strategic request by the Ministry of National Defense and armed services General Staff for additional high-tech and strategic nuclear weapons, the Hong Kong Tai Yang Bao newspaper reports.

Military specialists in Beijing, adds Tai Yang Bao, believe production of the high-tech weapons will begin soon. The new weapons will include supersonic bombers, extra-long-range modified anti-warship missiles, sky-wave and ground-wave over-the-horizon radars, as well as tactical air defense laser weapons and shore-to-warship laser cannon weapons.

[per loin]

So where's the photo?

Yes. We've heard about this photo for a couple of days, and not yet seen it. I knew the world would get slower like this once Art Bell was gone.

[DannyTN]

Could this have been some form of electron beam weapon?

[6ppc]

I think this will turn out to be another lens aberration. There was a thread on this earlier today, and it turns out that certain digital cameras show purplish aberrations when there is a lot of contrast, such as a bright point on a very dark background.

[commish]

So where's the photo?

I cannot believe how many people Keep asking this same question.

Read the article, both this one and the SF Chronicle article.

NASA has the CAMERA and the IMAGES!! The Astronomer undoubtedly also has copies, BUT he specifically told the SF Chronicle that he would not release the IMAGe until NASA reviews it

Think people - the guy wants his anonimity for now. He most likely does not want this IMAGE roaming the internet until someone has verified it is real or says it is a chromatic problem with the camera.

[deport]

The photographer continues to request his name be withheld, adding he would not release the image publicly until NASA has a chance to study it.

---

Trying to raise it's value it seems.......

[Sam Cree]

Doesn't sound like a digital camera was used.

[Solamente]

Could this have been some form of electron beam weapon?

You're getting warm,...I'm afraid.

[gitmo]

I assumed those were rhetorical questions. The article was plain on this subject.

[Quietly]

http://www.gulufuture.com/future/scalar_columbia_z.htm

Cough... uh huh...

[gitmo]

I had heard the Russians had been working on this. There was a special on the Discovery Channel about it a few weeks ago.

[Vermont Lt]

I have not been able to ascertain the type of camera, but if it is digital; especially a Digital Nikon, there are serious issues with exposures of that length. Digital cameras do not deal with time exposures the same way film cameras do. Longer exposures (more than the normal 1/30th, 1/60th) impact the image with more noise and shifts to different spectrums. This has to do with the CCD sensors. You could go to any of a number of professional digital camera sites on the net: www.dpreview; www.robgalbraith.com just to mention a couple and do some research.

This is a well known issue with Nikon Digitals--especially the higher end ones.

[Vermont Lt]

Of course there was the theory that we were invading Iraq to capture the reverse engineered UFO that crashed there. We might be too late! //sarcasm off//

Sorry for the multiple posts...couldnt help myself.

[Joe Hadenuf]

So where's the photo?

Well, these folks in California apparently don't appear to be media hounds, so I would guess the photos are in good hands.

[snickeroon]

In addition, I have another sidebar to throw into this discussion. Are the anamolies said to be photographed in the mideast (an unidentified and mysterious arc of red light) seen when the crew was photographing lightening strikes.....were those images automatically transferred to NASA, or, were they destroyed in the crash?

Further, what sort of connection does the aforementioned arc mean in "light" of the patch designed for the Columbia crew.

Art Bell, please RETURN to the building.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Some people wouldn't know a credible source, or person if it bit them on the butt.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

This is dubious as a possible cause, but it is related to high atmosphere electrical discharge.
I say its unlikely because this occurs in the presence of storms. if you can take a picture of the shuttle it would seem that there would be no storms in the area. It does show the possibility of electrical discharge pretty high up in the atmosphere. Posted for interests sake.

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/images/licae/sprites.htm

_________________________________________________________

Sprites and jets

Reports of strange bursts of colored light
coming out of the tops of powerful
thunderstorms date back to the 1800s. And
even though aircraft pilots reported them in
the 1950s and '60s, they remained unconfirmed
until recently.

These weird flashes were first observed from
the ground, when, quite by accident, they were
captured on video on July 5, 1989 by University
of Minnesota scientists John Winckler, Robert
Franz and Robert Nemzek. The scientists were
actually performing a calibration test for a low
light level monochrome camera, and weren't
particularly looking at the thunderstorm to the
east of their observing site at all. The next
morning, while viewing the test video, they
saw giant twin pillars of light extending
upward more than 30 kilometers above the
thunderstorm.

The flashes were first recorded from space by
the Space Shuttle (STS-34), as it passed over a
highly active thunderstorm in northern
Australia on Oct. 21, 1989. The shuttle's
monochrome TV cameras filmed what are now
called sprites and jets for the first time from
space. The observations were being conducted
as part of the NASA/Marshall Mesoscale
Lightning Observation Experiment. Otha H.
Vaughan, Jr., of NASA's Global Hydrology Center
was the principal investigator.

In 1994, while flying an extremely sensitive
color camera normally used for auroral
photography in a high altitude aircraft,
University of Alaska scientists confirmed that
the flashes have a generally reddish color
which often fades to purple or blue in the
downward extending tendrils. Dr. Davis
Sentman of UAF named these "sprites" after the
creatures in Shakespeare's "The Tempest," in
part because of their transient, ephemeral
nature. The UAF team also discovered and
named blue jets.

The sprites appear high above the
thunderstorm while the jets shoot out from the
top of the thunderstorm. Sprites appear to
cascade as high as 96 km (60 mi) above the
Earth. Sprites can look like giant red blobs,
picket fences, upward branching carrots, or
tentacled octopi, and can occur singly or in
clusters. The jets appear to be ejected from the
storm top with velocities as high as 100 km per
sec and move up as high as 32 kilometers.

There are two common theories about the
formation of lightning. One is that lightning is
merely an atmospheric breakdown that
creates low-energy electrons, which, in turn,
excite the air to fluoresce. A second theory
holds that the air can break down over large
distances, generating 1 million times the
energy per electron, and that those electrons,
when they stop in the atmosphere, produce
gamma rays. The latter theory is supported by
the Burst and Transient Source Experiment
(BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory which has detected gamma rays
coming up from the Earth - not deep space -
when the spacecraft was over thunderstorms.

Researchers want to know what effect upward
lightning may have on future commercial
aviation operations and high altitude balloon
research flights in the stratosphere. The
Boeing 777 already can fly to 18 km (60,000 ft),
and future aircraft will fly even higher.

____________________________________________________
If you like this abstract see this more complete article:

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd10jun99%5F1.htm

It has photos of the phenomena to (Helpful to people like me.)

[Nick Danger]

I have not been able to ascertain the type of camera, but if it is digital...

"I couldn't see the discharge with my own eyes, but it showed up clear and bright on the film when I developed it," the photographer previously said.

[Finny]

bookmark 16

[gitmo]

Digital film?

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Additional information

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd23sep98%5F1.htm

These weird flashes were first observed
from the ground, when, quite by accident,
they were captured on video on July 5, 1989
by University of Minnesota scientists John
Winckler, Robert Franz and Robert Nemzek.
The scientists were actually performing a
calibration test for a low light level
monochrome camera, and weren't
particularly looking at the thunderstorm to
the east of their observing site at all. The
next morning, while viewing the test video,
they saw giant twin pillars of light extending
upward more than 30 kilometers above the
thunderstorm.

The flashes were first recorded from space
by the Space Shuttle (STS-34), as it passed
over a highly active thunderstorm in
northern Australia on Oct. 21, 1989. The
shuttle's monochrome TV cameras filmed
what are now called sprites and jets. The
observations were being conducted as part
of the NASA/Marshall Mesoscale Lightning
Observation Experiment. Otha H. Vaughan, Jr.,
of NASA's Global Hydrology Center was the
principal investigator.

In 1994, while flying an extremely sensitive
color camera normally used for auroral
photography in a high altitude aircraft,
University of Alaska scientists confirmed that
the flashes have a generally reddish color
which often fades to purple or blue in the
downward extending tendrils. Dr. Davis
Sentman of UAF named these "sprites" after
the creatures in Shakespeare's "The
Tempest," in part because of their transient,
ephemeral nature. The UAF team also
discovered and named blue jets.

The sprites appear high above the
thunderstorm while the jets shoot out from
the top of the thunderstorm. Sprites appear
to cascade as high as 96 km (60 mi) above
the Earth. Sprites can look like giant red
blobs, picket fences, upward branching
carrots, or tentacled octopi, and can occur
singly or in clusters. The jets appear to be
ejected from the storm top with velocities as
high as 100 km per sec and move up as high
as 32 kilometers.

Stratospheric lightning events could
generate strong electric fields and
electromagnetic pulses which may interact
with the Earth's ionosphere and
magnetosphere. Strong fields at high
altitudes may generate runaway electrons
which could then produce high energy
x-rays and even gamma rays. Thus, it is
possible that lightning may generate a
broad spectrum of electromagnetic
radiation, ranging from extremely low
energy to extremely high-energy gamma
radiation. This theory is supported by the
Burst and Transient Source Experiment
(BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory which has detected gamma
rays coming up from the Earth - not deep
space - when the spacecraft was over
thunderstorms.

Researchers want to know what effect
upward lightning may have on future
commercial aviation operations and high
altitude balloon research flights in the
stratosphere.

[CMailBag]

Assuming these are the same photos that we have been hearing about for days, I think one of the earlier articles said that it was a Nikon 8. Is that a digital camera?

[fiftymegaton]

Even if the Chinese have laser weapons I doubt very much that they could hit a target traveling at 13000 mph with it. At least not for a couple decades(I would think).

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

This guy reportedly takes pics with his Nikon anytime the shuttle flight is within viewing distance of his location in the SF area. My question . . . What do his other photos of other flights show? Anything like the yet unseen photos reported here? Is this an anomoly for this particular flight with disastorous result, or is it an anomoly that might from time to time show up in his previous photographs, indicating perhaps that the anomoly has an origin in his camera, or in his technique for photoing the shuttle?

[Bogey78O]

Heh, I had hoped my tagline would help ease ping related issues.

[HP8753]

Are the anamolies said to be photographed in the mideast (an unidentified and mysterious arc of red light) seen when the crew was photographing lightening strikes

Red Sprites and Blue Jets>>> http://elf.gi.alaska.edu/
Or do a Google search on "Red Sprites and Blue Jets

[Bogey78O]

No. Next question.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Additional information on sprites. Follow link for additional photos.

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd23sep98%5F1.htm

These weird flashes were first observed
from the ground, when, quite by accident,
they were captured on video on July 5, 1989
by University of Minnesota scientists John
Winckler, Robert Franz and Robert Nemzek.
The scientists were actually performing a
calibration test for a low light level
monochrome camera, and weren't
particularly looking at the thunderstorm to
the east of their observing site at all. The
next morning, while viewing the test video,
they saw giant twin pillars of light extending
upward more than 30 kilometers above the
thunderstorm.

The flashes were first recorded from space
by the Space Shuttle (STS-34), as it passed
over a highly active thunderstorm in
northern Australia on Oct. 21, 1989. The
shuttle's monochrome TV cameras filmed
what are now called sprites and jets. The
observations were being conducted as part
of the NASA/Marshall Mesoscale Lightning
Observation Experiment. Otha H. Vaughan, Jr.,
of NASA's Global Hydrology Center was the
principal investigator.

In 1994, while flying an extremely sensitive
color camera normally used for auroral
photography in a high altitude aircraft,
University of Alaska scientists confirmed that
the flashes have a generally reddish color
which often fades to purple or blue in the
downward extending tendrils. Dr. Davis
Sentman of UAF named these "sprites" after
the creatures in Shakespeare's "The
Tempest," in part because of their transient,
ephemeral nature. The UAF team also
discovered and named blue jets.

The sprites appear high above the
thunderstorm while the jets shoot out from
the top of the thunderstorm. Sprites appear
to cascade as high as 96 km (60 mi) above
the Earth. Sprites can look like giant red
blobs, picket fences, upward branching
carrots, or tentacled octopi, and can occur
singly or in clusters. The jets appear to be
ejected from the storm top with velocities as
high as 100 km per sec and move up as high
as 32 kilometers.

Stratospheric lightning events could
generate strong electric fields and
electromagnetic pulses which may interact
with the Earth's ionosphere and
magnetosphere. Strong fields at high
altitudes may generate runaway electrons
which could then produce high energy
x-rays and even gamma rays. Thus, it is
possible that lightning may generate a
broad spectrum of electromagnetic
radiation, ranging from extremely low
energy to extremely high-energy gamma
radiation. This theory is supported by the
Burst and Transient Source Experiment
(BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory which has detected gamma
rays coming up from the Earth - not deep
space - when the spacecraft was over
thunderstorms.

Researchers want to know what effect
upward lightning may have on future
commercial aviation operations and high
altitude balloon research flights in the
stratosphere.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Doesn't this add credence to the Arab / Muslim notion that the shuttle was divinely destroyed, as a rebuke to the United States?

If evildoers are smitten, I'd sure hate to live in the Middle East.

[RugerM77]

I certainly am not alleging anything-But I just learned this week from reading "Reagan's War" that the Russians were able to laser hit the Challenger back in the early 80's. -Caused discomfort to the crew and screwed up some instruments-
Kind of throws cold water on the theory that NOTHING from the ground could hit it.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Oops! double post, same info. Sorry.

[Vermont Lt]

Well, there you have it. There really isn't digital film, at least we dont call it that...

[mr. mojo risin]

Discharge from a directed energy weapon?

Think twice before you post quick-draw, I have read a study done concerning shuttle being attacked scenarios including this.

[FreedomCalls]

See the bottom left paragraph on this page from Kodak.

February 1st. Cold. Excited photographer. Shuttle re-entry. Quick rewind.

Motorized cameras automatically rewind their exposed film. In dry, cold weather, this may cause static streaking, which looks like horizontal lightning, on your film. When you're finished shooting, remove the camera batteries and bring it all indoors. Once the camera and film reach room temperature—in about an hour—replace the batteries and rewind the film. With manual cameras, rewind the film very slowly.

[petuniasevan]

There used to be a thread on sprites and related phenomena, but it has been pulled. Why, I don't know.

The Balloon goes up over lightning! (Sprites and related phenomena)

[FreedomCalls]

Here is an example of static discharge on film taken at night.

[TLBSHOW]

It would be two things either an Act of God or a Terrorist attack as I brought up here earlier tonight.....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836736/posts?q=1&&page=1#230

on another note

Meteorite 'may have hit shuttle'

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_747632.html

[BenLurkin]

"a glowing purple rope of light corkscrews down toward the plasma trail, "

I have heard of certain nations researching earth-based particle beams but this seems to imply a "squiggle" from above.

Would really like to see the photo for myself.

[snickeroon]

Thanks, but actually, I was referring to something different... Here is an exerpt of the original story which I picked up from a Google search using Columbia and red arc. This particular version is from Reuters, via CNN archive, and as you will note, well before Saturday's tragedy:


Thursday, January 23, 2003 Posted: 8:22 PM EST (0122 GMT)



   CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) -- Astronauts videotaping thunderstorms from the space shuttle Columbia captured what scientists said Thursday was a never-before-seen red glowing arc of light paralleling the curve of the Earth.

"Two nights ago over Africa was an extraordinary image. We saw a huge horizontal line of air glow which has been brightened by lightning below it which extended to several hundred miles horizontally and we feel it may be something new," said Dr. Yoav Yair.

Yair, project coordinator for Israeli experiments on board the Columbia in its current mission, said analysis would attempt over the next few weeks to confirm scientists' initial impression that the glow is neither a sprite nor an elf, two other electrical phenomena associated with thunderstorms.

"It is raw data hot from the oven," Yair said. "It's a grainy and noisy image but for scientists it's a treasure trove. That's what we like."

Scientists were excited by the news that astronauts Sunday captured the first-ever pictures of elves taken from space with a calibrated camera. The shuttle and its seven-member crew, which includes Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, are on a 16-day science mission that began on January 16....




More and more, this is becoming a story of "principalities and powers" of Biblical proportions. P.S., In regards to the claim made that it was a punishment from "god"..... It should be noted that Satan is considered the prince of "air." God loves Israel, and those who offer protection....

Once more, given the story, isn't the patch on the phenomenal side of coincidental?

[deport]

Shows how much I was paying attention.... You'd think the Forum coding would recognize the difference also and thus not except the 0 as a valid replacement for O.

[Cvengr]

discussed with some examples here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836319/posts?page=31#31

[DAnconia55]

"In the critical shot," states the Chronicle, "a glowing purple rope of light corkscrews down toward the plasma trail, appears to pass behind it, then cuts sharply toward it from below. As it merges with the plasma trail, the streak itself brightens for a distance, then fades."

This is NOT Camera error, as was posited earlier.

[DAnconia55]

Or it could be a SYMPTOM of a problem induced by a meteor or foam impact on the TPS

Or it could just be nature throwing the dice and coming up you lose....

[ganeshpuri89]

Jane's: Soviets secretly developed space-based weapons

"....On Oct. 10, 1984, a Terra-3 laser at low power tracked the 13th Challenger space shuttle mission, causing unspecified malfunctions on the shuttle and distress to the crew, he said. The incident led to a formal U.S. diplomatic protest."

[FreedomCalls]

This is NOT Camera error, as was posited earlier.

How do you know? Have you seen the photo?

[TLBSHOW]

or it could be from the problems at NASA

STS 109 March 2002....Columbia suffers a systems failure during pre-test cycling prior to de-orbit burn.
Failure occurs in 4 port RCS thruster pack [pitch/yaw/roll]