badeskov on Oct 27 2008, 08:37 PM, said:
Terrestrial plasmas are the broader term for plasmas here on Earth. But lets just call them atmospheric plasmas to narrow it down. But lets get down to the more interesting parts of a plasma. You do not need a magnetic field to create and maintain a plasma, you need energy. And such energy can be created in many ways. You can make one in your microwave oven if you are so inclined. Also, when you rub a plastic stick wit a dry cloth to create static electricity, you build up charges and when discharged, you get a tiny lightening strike, which is a plasma. Same can happen in the atmosphere. When you have layer of air moving at different velocities, you can get friction that in turn can create differences in potentials. But the fact is that such exists and we still don't know why and how they are created and maintained. we just know that they are.
All of these processes require specific conditions and are very short-lived. No particular weather or geomagnetic condition is associated with UFOs. The possibility of "vortex plasma" can't be ruled out, but it frankly requires new science to explain it.
Quote
I have quoted the Hessdalen studies some times, but I don't mind doing it again. Here we have plasmas that exhibit such behaviors as UFOs exhibit. Again, they don't know why and how, and especially why it is happening just there. They can just observe that it is. From one of my earlier posts
Regards the Hessdalen lights, there is no conclusive evidence as to what they are. The observations to date have not been able to account for their behaviour and one cannot even be sure that they *are* plasma. In fact, it appears that until 1994 it was widely believed to be a hoax. It is not so "done and dusted" as you are making out. Some researchers are taking the angle that they may be some form of SETV (their acronym to avoid UFO ridicule).
Fact 1: Luminosity increases as a function of surface area, not temperature (no blackbody relationship)
Fact 2: The gaussian light pattern emitted from the Hessdalen lights was thought to be consistent with plasma but has now been shown to be consistent with a solid, uniform lumnous surface (ie like a fluorescent bulb).
I can argue that the observed Hessdalen lights have
some characteristics of a possible natural plasma, but not all. Therefore they are still unexplained. In this particular case I still suspect that it's natural, but that's as far as I can guess.
Quote
Here we have something that is intensely luminous, provides a strong radar signature, can move fast and highly erratically (seeming intelligently), reacting to outside stimuli (in this case a laser beam). This is why I can simply not take a report from 1968 as being relevant, as it reflects what they knew at the time about atmospheric events, and recent science very obviously contradicts what was stated then.
As I have noted, there is no coherent scientific explanation for that. Additionally, the Hessdalen lights often had no radar signature.
Quote
This is why we need the irrefutable evidence, as otherwise we simply do not know. We can speculate, but that is all we can currently do.
Agreed.
Quote
My point not being that we can say that our UFO sightings indeed are plasmas. But my point being that until the point where we can eliminate all earthly explanations, the sightings remain unknown. We simply do not know what they are. Period.
In science there are such things as "leading theories." My personal position is that the ETH is the leading hypothesis, as it answers the most questions and fits with the evidence the best.
Edited by Captain Zim, 28 October 2008 - 01:15 AM.