CATASTROPHE IN THE SKY
Photos: Mystery flashes spotted near shuttle
Astronomer captures 'electrical phenomena' near Columbia's track
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Posted: February 2, 2003
8:05 p.m. Eastern

An astronomer who regularly photographs space shuttles when they pass over the San Francisco Bay area has captured five "strange and provocative images" of Columbia as it was re-entering the atmosphere.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports the images "appear to be bright electrical phenomena flashing around the track of the shuttle's passage."

"They 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, who asked not to be identified, told the Chronicle.

 The photos were snapped with a Nikon camera using a tripod.

Though the space scientist is not making the pictures public immediately, he invited the newspaper to view the images on his home computer this weekend.

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

"They show a bright scraggly flash of orange light, tinged with pale purple, and shaped somewhat like a deformed L," Perlman writes. "The flash appears to cross the Columbia's dim [white trail formed in the wake of the craft], and at that precise point, the [white trail] abruptly brightens and appears thicker and somewhat twisted as if it were wobbling."

"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 said. "But I'm not going to speculate about what it might be."

SCIENTISTS ADMIT UNEXPLAINED LIGHTNING
Feb. 7, 2003

I stand corrected. In USA TODAY, an atmospheric scientist, Walter Lyons of FMA Research in Fort Collins came right out and admitted it may have been an unexplained lightning bolt.

After a long in-depth description of the middle sphere between our atmosphere and space, Lyons says, "Scientists are still discovering unexplained phenomena...There is all sorts of electrical foolishness going on up there that we still don't know anything about."

He states, "Red sprites are electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere. They occur over thunderclouds and have been considered to pose less than a 1-in-100 risk to the shuttle."

"Blue jets are upward lightning strikes. In 1998, Lyons and a team of scientists reported one that was sparked by a meteor. "The safety implications are just a gaping hole in our knowledge," he says.

If they can explain its pattern, it seems less like God...but Who moves the clouds into position in the first place...

"As the space shuttle streaks through the upper atmosphere, it leaves a wake in the air just as a boat leaves a wake behind it in the water. The shuttle's wake becomes electrified. Lyons says some scientists are speculating that its electrified wake acted as an antenna and drew a blue jet to the Columbia."

There was also a long discussion about how instruments were picking up unusual heat patterns:

Another possibility is that the heat could have come from something inside the shuttle. But engineers say they think that's unlikely. No other sensors on the shuttle registered unusual heating."

It seems like the tip of a lightning bolt would uniquely heat up isolated heat instruments.

This is so interesting, but ultimately it's so incredibly sad. When we do these incredible feats, why do we always try to prove it's evidence that God doesn't exist?

God does. And I hope Col. Husband had a chance to share the Good News with the other astronauts during the days that they were there. Our lives are but a vapor. It's all about the decision we make in this lifetime...  what do we do with His Son?

A hundred years from now, we'll all be gone. Every single person you know. This life is all about choosing, who is Jesus Christ, and what does He mean to you?  This is the year of acceptance, now is the time.  You never know when "electrical foolishness" will strike. Consider Christ.

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