About 9 p.m. a couple of days ago I was sitting in my living room reading a book when I happened to look out the window and across the street. No sooner then I had looked up a purple and orange flame spurted up out of the sidewalk. It burned for maybe five seconds and then shrunk and disappeared. A friend of mine was there with me and saw it too. He later suggested that it may have been St. Elmo's fire although I am hesitant to believe this because of both the way it looked and the location it occurred (directly beneath a big eucalyptus tree). The next day I went out to the spot where I saw it and couldn't find any scorch marks or other evidence that a flame had burned in that spot. In fact the cement was evenly covered with leaves and there wasn't the slightest bit of evidence that anything had even been there.

There aren't any gas lines nearby and the electrical wires are all above ground, so I can't think of what this could have possibly been.

Do any of you have any idea?

Thanks in anticipation,
Russ

was it night time could it have been some kids putting a flamable chemical on the ground and lighting it? three a chance if it was such a quick burn that only the accelerant burned leaving the area around unharmed

Interesting. I was unable to find any similar occurences on the web, hopefully someone here will have an idea.

EDIT: This should probably be moved to the sightings, reports and expierences section.

There wasn't anybody around at the time, I am pretty sure of that. I live in a quiet neighborhood and would have most likely seen someone had it been a prank of some sort. Thanks for the thought though.