All About Orbs The Good The Bad The Ugly!

By:Daniel J Leach

A1 Absolute All About Orbs Face
A1 Absolute All About Orbs Face

First of all let me start by saying Id really like to see a real scientific study done on Orbs.  I am one of those rare people who can see Orbs with the Naked eye!  Yes that means that I can see Orbs when other people can not see anything at all!   When I see Orbs they are not always moving fast like a flash of light passing back and forth from one end of the room to another or at angles from up to down!  They also can move any different direction.  I have seen more than one at a time.   I do not always see orbs 24/7 and I do not go out of my way to find Orbs I am not a Ghost hunter, but maybe I should be!  I have captured orbs on Camera phones.  Often times If a picture is taken of me Orbs show up in the photo’s.

A1 Absolute All About Orbs Face
A1 Absolute All About Orbs Face

When I worked in the medical field as a nurses aid I would see Orbs often times in hospitals and in nursing homes!  The Orbs I see can be just about anyplace and at any time!  I did notice that I can see Orbs the best in certain kinds of light better than other!  Most of the time I can see Orbs inside of buildings and in dark places.  I also have seen Orbs in rooms with ceiling lights that shine strait down to the floor, I do not know why but that seems to be the best light for them to be seen by me!

I have no Idea what Orbs are if they are ghost, Aliens or even intelligent life but I do know they are real because I can capture what I see on camera or on video!   The term orb describes unexpected, typically circular artifacts that occur in flash photography — sometimes with trails indicating motion — especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras.  Orbs are also sometimes called backscatter, orb backscatter, or near-camera reflection.  Its my opinion that this is a bad definition of Orbs because my eyes do not make a flash or reflection at all.

I have met other people who also can see  or have seen Orbs with the Naked eye!  We are not crazy people we just see Orbs!  If I was Crazy could you see Orbs on a photo or on video?  I think its just one of those things that people are afraid of because it can not be explained away as your Crazy and that’s it!  Look my eyes are 20/10 and 20/15 so maybe my vision is just better than the average guys and I can see more with my eyes than most! Its kinda like Dogs have great hearing and can hear more than most people can!   This is the only thing that makes sense to me, its logical! And no its not Flash blindness, dust in my eyes or a Retina Burn, Im not looking into bright lights like the Sun or a Camera is not flashing in my eyes!   Call me crazy I don’t care who the hell are you anyways God is my Judge!


One of the leading theories concerning what orbs are and the one that I lean towards the most is that they are not the spirit at all.   The orb is the energy being transferred from a source (i.e. powerlines, heat energy, batteries, people, etc) to the spirit so they can manifest.   This may not even be a conscious thing the spirit is doing, just a natural way they get their energy.  This would explain why the orbs are round balls.  According to the laws of Physics energy being transferring like that would assume is natural shape of a sphere.   This theory can also be tied into the EMF readings we get during spirit activity.  But I could be wrong they could be alive or some kind of intelligent being. 


The term orb describes unexpected, typically circular artifacts that occur in flash photography — sometimes with trails indicating motion — especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras.

A single orb in the center of the photo, at the person’s knee level.

Orbs are also sometimes called backscatter, orb backscatter, or near-camera reflection.

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[edit]Cause

Orb artifacts are captured during low-light instances where the camera’s flash is used, such as at night or underwater – or where a bright light source is near the camera.

The artifacts are especially common with compact or ultra-compact cameras, where the short distance between the lens and the built-in flash decreases the angle of light reflectionto the lens, directly illuminating the aspect of the particles facing the lens and increasing the camera’s ability to capture the light reflected off normally sub-visible particles.[1]

The orb artifact can result from retroreflection of light off solid particles (e.g., dust, pollen), liquid particles (water droplets, especially rain) or other foreign material within the camera lens.[1]

The image artifacts usually appear as either white or semi-transparent circles, though may also occur with whole or partial color spectrums, purple fringing or other chromatic aberration. With rain droplets, an image may capture light passing through the droplet creating a small rainbow effect.

In underwater conditions, particles such as sand or small sea life close to the lens, invisible to the diver, reflect light from the flash causing the orb artifact in the image. A strobe flash, which distances the flash from the lens, eliminates the artifacts.

Below are two diagrams of a hypothetical underwater instance. In Diagram A, the faces of particles directly aligned with the camera’s lens are illuminated by the flash, and thus the camera will more likely record orbs. In Diagram B, the faces of particles illuminated by the flash do not face the lens and therefore remain un-recorded. [2]

A hypothetical underwater instance with two conditions in which orbs are (A) likely or (B) unlikely, depending on whether the aspect of particles facing the lens are directly illuminated by the flash, as shown. Elements not shown to scale.

[edit]Example images

Examples of orb artifacts reflecting solid or liquid particles:

  • Dust orb

  • Dust orbs

  • Thick charcoal dust

  • Charcoal dust floating in the air

  • Rain orbs, camera zoomed out

  • Forest orbs

  • Rain orbs, camera zoomed in

  • Rain orbs with coma (tails) and chromatic aberration

  • Close up orb, showingpurple fringing

[edit]Paranormal interpretation

Consistent with the Jesus Toast phenomenon, Orb backscatter has been broadly interpreted as a highly variable range of supernatural paranormal phenomenon without verifiability — including invisible spirits, unexpected lights, auras, angels, ghosts, energy fields, psycho-energetic artifacts, energy balls, etc.[3][4][5][6][7]

[edit]See also

[edit]References

  1. a b “The Truth Behind ‘Orbs'”.
  2. ^ Ledwith, Heinemann, Míċeál, Klaus (2007). “The Orb Project”. Simon and Schuster. pp. 208. ISBN 1582701822.
  3. ^ “Enough with the Orbs Already,Stephen Wagner”. About.com.
  4. ^ “A Life in the Day Klaus Heinemann”The Times (London). 31 August 2008.
  5. ^ http://www.assap.org/newsite/htmlfiles/Orb%20FAQ.html
  6. ^ http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghostphotos/ig/Orbs-Debate-Photos/Antique-orb.htm
  7. ^ Ledwith, Heinemann, Míċeál, Klaus (2007). “The Orb Project”. Simon and Schuster. pp. 208. ISBN 1582701822.

[edit]External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Photographical orbs

Will-o’-the-wisp

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Will-o’-the-wisp
Phenomenon
Arnold Böcklin - Das Irrlicht -1882.jpeg
An 1882 oil painting of a will-o’-the-wisp byArnold Böcklin
See also Naga fireball
Min Min light
Foxfire
Earthquake light
St. Elmo’s fire
Ball lightning
Aurora

will-o’-the-wisp /ˌwɪl ə ðə ˈwɪsp/ or ignis fatuus (play /ˌɪɡnɨs ˈfæəs/Medieval Latin: “foolish fire”) is a ghostly light seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. It resembles a flickering lamp and is said to recede if approached, drawing travellers from the safe paths. A folk belief well attested in English folklore and in much of European folklore, the phenomenon is known by a variety of names, including jack-o’-lanternhinkypunkhobby lantern in English.[1]

Scientifically, “marsh gas” is methane that bubbles out of marshes; this gas is contaminated with phosphine (PH3) and diphosphane(P2H4) which, when brought in contact with air, can spontaneously catch fire. This sudden burst of flame can potentially explain many will-o’-the-wisp sightings.

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[edit]Terminology

The term “will-o’-the-wisp” comes from “wisp”, a bundle of sticks or paper sometimes used as a torch, and the name “Will“: thus, “Will-of-the-torch”. The term jack-o’-lantern “Jack of [the] lantern” has a similar meaning. Its application to carved pumpkins in American English is an innovation of the 19th century.

In the United States, they are often called “spook-lights”, “ghost-lights”, or “orbs”[2] by folklorists and paranormal enthusiasts.[3][4]

Folk belief attributes the phenomenon to fairies or elemental spirits, explicitly in the term “hobby lanterns” found in the 19th century Denham Tracts. Briggs’ A Dictionary of Fairiesprovides an extensive list of other names for the same phenomenon, though the place where they are observed (graveyard, bogs, etc.) influences the naming considerably. When observed on graveyards, they are known as “ghost candles”, also a term from the Denham Tracts.

The names will-o’-the-wisp and jack-o’-lantern are explained in aitiological folk-tales, recorded in many variant forms in IrelandScotlandEnglandWalesAppalachia, andNewfoundland.[citation needed] In these tales, protagonists named either Will or Jack are doomed to haunt the marshes with a light for some misdeed.

One version, from Shropshire, recounted by K. M. Briggs in her book A Dictionary of Fairies, refers to Will the Smith. Will is a wicked blacksmith who is given a second chance bySaint Peter at the gates to Heaven, but leads such a bad life that he ends up being doomed to wander the Earth. The Devil provides him with a single burning coal with which to warm himself, which he then used to lure foolish travellers into the marshes.

An Irish version of the tale has a ne’er-do-well named Drunk Jack or Stingy Jack who makes a deal with the Devil, offering up his soul in exchange for payment of his pub tab. When the Devil comes to collect his due, Jack tricks him by making him climb a tree and then carving a cross underneath, preventing him from climbing down. In exchange for removing the cross, the Devil forgives Jack’s debt. However, because no one as bad as Jack would ever be allowed into Heaven, Jack is forced upon his death to travel to Hell and ask for a place there. The Devil denies him entrance in revenge, but, as a boon, grants Jack an ember from the fires of Hell to light his way through the twilight world to which lost souls are forever condemned. Jack places it in a carved turnip to serve as a lantern.[5] Another version of the tale, “Willy the Whisp”, is related in Irish Folktales by Henry Glassie. The first modern novel in the Irish language, Séadna by Peadar Ua Laoghaire, is a version of the tale.

[edit]Folklore

[edit]Continental Europe

See also: Willi

In European folklore, these lights are held to be either mischievous spirits of the dead, or other supernatural beings or spirits such as fairies, attempting to lead travellers astray.

A modern Americanized adaptation of this travellers’ association frequently places swaying ghost-lights along roadsides and railroad tracks. Here a swaying movement of the lights is alleged to be that of 19th- and early 20th-century railway workers supposedly killed on the job.

Sometimes the lights are believed to be the spirits of unbaptized or stillborn children, flitting between heaven and hell. Modern occultist elaborations bracket them with thesalamander, a type of spirit wholly independent from humans (unlike ghosts, which are presumed to have been humans at some point in the past).

[edit]Scandinavia

DanesFinnsSwedesEstonians, and Latvians amongst some other groups believed that a will-o’-the-wisp marked the location of a treasure deep in ground or water, which could be taken only when the fire was there. Sometimes magical tricks, and even dead man’s hand, were required as well, to uncover the treasure. In Finland and other northern countries it was believed that early autumn was the best time to search for will-o’-the-wisps and treasures below them. It was believed that when someone hid treasure, in the ground, he made the treasure available only at the midsummer, and set will-o’-the-wisp to mark the exact place and time so that he could come to take the treasure back. Finns also believed that the creature guarding the treasure, aarni, used fire (aarnivalkea) to clean precious metals.

[edit]Britain

See also: Puck (mythology)

The will-o’-the-wisp can be found in numerous folk tales around the United Kingdom, and is often a malicious character in the stories. In Welsh folklore, it is said that the light is “fairy fire” held in the hand of a púca, or pwca, a small goblin-like fairy that mischievously leads lone travelers off the beaten path at night. As the traveler follows the púca through the marsh or bog, the fire is extinguished, leaving the man lost. The púca is said to be one of the Tylwyth Teg, or fairy family. In Wales the light predicts a funeral that will take place soon in the locality. Wirt Sikes in his book British Goblins mentions the following Welsh tale about púca.

A peasant traveling home at dusk spots a bright light traveling along ahead of him. Looking closer, he sees that the light is a lantern held by a “dusky little figure”, which he follows for several miles. All of a sudden he finds himself standing on the edge of a vast chasm with a roaring torrent of water rushing below him. At that precise moment the lantern-carrier leaps across the gap, lifts the light high over its head, lets out a malicious laugh and blows out the light, leaving the poor peasant a long way from home, standing in pitch darkness at the edge of a precipice. This is a fairly common cautionary tale concerning the phenomenon; however, the ignis fatuus was not always considered dangerous. There are some tales told about the will-o’-the-wisp being guardians of treasure, much like the Irish leprechaun leading those brave enough to follow them to sure riches. Other stories tell of travelers getting lost in the woodland and coming upon a will-o’-the-wisp, and depending on how they treated the will-o’-the-wisp, the spirit would either get them lost further in the woods or guide them out.

Also related, the Pixy-light from Devon and Cornwall is most often associated with the Pixie who often has “pixie-led” travelers away from the safe and reliable route, and into the bogs with glowing lights.

“Like Poltergeist they can generate uncanny sounds. They were less serious than their German Weisse Frauen kin, frequently blowing out candles on unsuspecting courting couples or producing obscene kissing sounds, which were always misinterpreted by parents.”[6] Pixy-Light was also associated with “lambent light”[7] which the “Old Norse” might have seen guarding their tombs.

In Cornish folklore, Pixy-Light also has associations with the Colt Pixy. “A colt pixie is a pixie that has taken the shape of a horse and enjoys playing tricks such as neighing at the other horses to lead them astray”.[8][9] It may well be said that the wild colt pixy would sometimes bedevil regular horses on a ride and cause them to lead their human masters into a predicament or hazard, and might have yielded the pixy – horse name variation.

In Guernsey, the light is known as the faeu boulanger (rolling fire), and is believed to be a lost soul. On being confronted with the spectre, tradition prescribes two remedies. The first is to turn one’s cap or coat inside out. This has the effect of stopping the faeu boulanger in its tracks. The other solution is to stick a knife into the ground, blade up. The faeu, in an attempt to kill itself, will attack the blade.[10]

[edit]Asia

See also: Chir Batti and Naga fireball

Aleya (or marsh ghost-light) is the name given to an unexplained strange light phenomena occurring over the marshes as observed by the Bengali people, specially the fishermen of Bengal. This marsh light is attributed to some kind of unexplained marsh gas apparitions that confuse fishermen, make them lose their bearings and may even lead to drowning if one decided to follow it moving over the marshes. Local communities in the region believe that these strange hovering marsh-lights are in fact Ghost-lights representing the ghosts of fisherman who died fishing, some times they confuse the fishermen and some times they help them avoid future dangers.[11][12]

A Japanese rendition of a Russian will-o’-the-wisp.

Chir batti (ghost-light), also spelled chhir batti or cheer batti, is a yet unexplained strange dancing light phenomena occurring on dark nights reported from the Banni grasslands, its seasonal marshy wetlands[13] and the adjoining desert of the marshy salt flats of the Rann of Kutch[14] near Indo-Pakistani border in Kutch districtGujarat State, India. Local villagers have been seeing these sometimes hovering, sometimes flying balls of lights since time immemorial, and call it Chir Batti in their KutchhiSindhi language, with Chir meaning ghost and Batti meaning light.[13]

One Asian theologist ponders the relation of will-o’-the-wisp to that of the foxfire produced by kitsune, an interesting way of combining mythology of the West with that of the East.[15]

Similar phenomena are described in Japanese folklore, including Hitodama (literally “Human Soul” as a ball of energy), Hi no Tama (Ball of Flame), Aburagae, Koemonbi, Ushionibi, etc. All these phenomena are described as balls of flame or light, at times associated with graveyards, but occurring across Japan as a whole in a wide variety of situations and locations. These phenomena are described inShigeru Mizuki‘s 1985 book Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms (妖怪伝 in Japanese).[16]

[edit]South America

Boi-tatá (Portuguese pronunciation: [bojtaˈta]) is the Brazilian equivalent of the will-o’-the-wisp.[17] Regionally it is called BoitatáBaitatáBatatáBitatáBatatãoBiatatáM’boiguaçu,Mboitatá and Mbaê-Tata. The name comes from the Old Tupi language and means “fiery serpent” (mboî tatá). It has great fiery eyes, leave it almost blind by day, but by night, it can see everything. According to legendBoi-tatá was a big serpent which survived a great deluge. A “boiguaçu” (a cave anaconda) left its cave after the deluge and, in the dark, went through the fields preying on the animals and corpses, eating exclusively its favorite morsel, the eyes. The collected light from the eaten eyes gave “Boitatá” its fiery gaze. Not really a dragon but a giant snake (in the native language, “boa” or “mboi” or “mboa”).

The expression “fogo-fátuo” is also used (“fake fire”, from the Latin “ignis fatuus”) throughout Brazil.

In Argentina the will-o’-the-wisp phenomenon is known as Luz Mala (evil light) or Fuego Fatuo and is one of the most important myths in Argentine and Uruguayan Folklore. This phenomenon is quite feared and is mostly seen on Argentine rural areas. It consists of an extremely shiny ball of light floating a few inches from the ground. Traditionally is said that“If the light is white, it implies a soul in pain and is recommended to say a prayer, but if the light is red, the witness must flee immediately, thus the phenomenon represents the temptation of Satan..”[citation needed]

[edit]Australia

See also: Min Min light

Min Min Light is the name given to an unusual light formation that has been reported numerous times in eastern Australia.[18][19] The lights have been reported from as far south asBrewarrina in western New South Wales, to as far north as Boulia in northern Queensland. The majority of sightings are reported to have occurred in Channel Country.[18]

Stories about the lights can be found in aboriginal myth pre-dating western settlement of the region and have since become part of wider Australian folklore.[18] Indigenous Australians hold that the number of sightings has increased alongside the increasing ingression of Europeans into the region.[18] According to folklore, the lights sometime follow or approached people and have disappeared when fired upon, only to reappear later on.[18][19]

[edit]Scientific explanation

An artist’s rendering of a will-o’-the-wisp

The oxidation of phosphine and methane, produced by organic decay, can cause photon emissions. Since phosphine spontaneously ignites on contact with the oxygen in air, only small quantities of it would be needed to ignite the much more abundant methane to create ephemeral fires. Chemists have replicated the lights by adding some chemicals to gases from rotting compounds. They argue that the combustion can be sustained at lower temperatures than those found in traditional fires.[citation needed] Taken together, these findings seem to explain two of the more puzzling aspects of the will-o’-the-wisp — its spontaneous, transient nature and its low-temperature “flame” that doesn’t seem to burn close-by ignitable items.[20]

Writing in the Journal of American Folklore in 1891, J.G. Owens contested the marsh-gas hypothesis:

This is a name that is sometimes applied to a phenomenon perhaps more frequently called Jack-o’-the-Lantern, or Will-o’-the-Wisp. It seems to be a ball of fire, varying in size from that of a candle-flame to that of a man’s head. It is generally observed in damp, marshy places, moving to and fro; but it has been known to stand perfectly still and send off scintillations. As you approach it, it will move on, keeping just beyond your reach; if you retire, it will follow you. That these fireballs do occur, and that they will repeat your motion, seems to be established, but no satisfactory explanation has yet been offered that I have heard. Those who are less superstitious say that it is the ignition of the gases rising from the marsh. But how a light produced from burning gas could have the form described and move as described, advancing as you advance, receding as you recede, and at other times remaining stationary, without having any visible connection with the earth, is not clear to me.[21]

In 1993, professors Derr and Persinger proposed that the lights are piezoelectrically generated under a tectonic strain. The strains that move faults would also heat up the rocks, vaporizing the water in them. Rock or soil containing something piezoelectric, like quartzsilicon or arsenic, may also produce electricity, channeled up to the surface through the soil via a column of vaporized water, there somehow appearing as earth lights. This would explain why the lights appear electrical, erratic, or even intelligent in their behavior.[22][23]

Others explanations link will-o’-the-wisps to bioluminescencee.g.honey fungusBarn owls also have white plumage that may reflect enough light from sources such as the moon to appear as a will-o’-the-wisp; hence the possibility of the lights moving, reacting to other lights, etc.[24]

[edit]In literature

In literature, Will o’ the wisp sometimes has a metaphorical meaning, describing a hope or goal that leads one on but is impossible to reach, or something one finds sinister and confounding.[25]

In Book IX of John Milton‘s Paradise Lost, Satan is compared to a “will-o-the-wisp” in tempting of Eve to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil:

[…] He, leading, swiftly rolled
In tangles, and made intricate seem straight,
To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire,
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through agitation to a flame,
Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;There swallowed up and lost, from succour far.
—9.631-642

Samuel Taylor Coleridge‘s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner describes the Will o’ the wisp.[26]

Two Will-o-the-wisps appear in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe‘s fairy tale The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily (1795). They are described as lights which consume gold, and are capable of shaking gold pieces again from themselves.[27]

It is seen in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre when Jane Eyre is unsure if it is a candle or a Will-o-the-wisp.

“Mother Carey” wrote a popular 19th century poem titled “Will-O’-The-Wisp”.

The Will o’ the wisp makes an appearance in the first chapter of Bram Stoker‘s Dracula, as the Count, masquerading as his own coach driver, takes Jonathan Harker to his castle in the night. The following night, when Harker asks Dracula about the lights, the Count makes reference to a common folk belief about the phenomenon by saying that they mark where treasure is buried.[28]

In J. R. R. Tolkien‘s work The Lord of the Rings, will o’ the wisps are present in the Dead Marshes outside of Mordor. When Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee make their way through the bogs the spindly creature Gollum tells them “not to follow the lights” meaning the will o’ the wisps. He tells them that if they do, they will keep the dead company and have little candles of their own. Also, Gandalf guides the Fellowship through the darkness of Moria (A Journey in the Dark) and his “wizard’s light” is compared to a will-o’-the-wisp. Given that Moria was an ancient source of mithril, this might be a nod to Scandinavian associations of the will-o’-the-wisp with treasure.

The hinkypunk, the name for a Will o’ the wisp in South West England has achieved fame as a magical beast in JK Rowling‘s Harry Potter series. In the books, a hinkypunk is a one-legged, frail-looking creature that appears to be made of smoke. It is said to carry a lantern and mislead travelers.

The children’s fantasy series “The Spiderwick Chronicles“, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, includes will o’the wisps; they are listed in “Arthur Spiderwick’s Guide to the Fantastical World Around You.” In the series, Will O’ The Wisps are described as fat fireflies that lead travellers astray.

The German fantasy novel by Michael Ende The Neverending Story (German: Die unendliche Geschichte 1979 and Ralph Manheim’s English translation 1983) begins in Fantastica, when a will-o’-the-wisp goes to ask the Childlike Empress for help against the Nothing, which is spreading over the land. The film based on the book does not contain the Will -o’-the-wisp.

In Italo Calvino‘s novella, The Cloven Viscount, the narrator describes assisting Dr. Trelawney, a doctor-cum-amateur-scientist, in his hunt for will-o’-the-wisps in cemeteries. Calvino implies a connection between the number of fresh corpses in a graveyard and the frequency of will-o’-the-wisps.

[edit]In music

In classical music, one of Franz Liszt‘s most challenging piano studies (the Transcendental Etude No.5), known for its flighty and mysterious quality, bears the title “Feux Follets” (the French term for Will-o’-the-wisp). The phenomenon also appears in “Canción del fuego fatuo” (‘Song of the will-o’-the-wisp’) in Manuel de Falla‘s ballet El amor brujo,[29] later covered by Miles Davis as “Will-O’-The-Wisp” on Sketches Of Spain. The German name of the phenomenon, Irrlicht, has been the name of a song by the classical composer Franz Schubert in his song cycle Winterreise. Additionally, the first solo album of electronic musician Klaus Schulze is named Irrlicht.

Several bands have written songs about or referring to will-o’-the-wisps, such as Magnolia electric Co.,[30] VerdunkelnLeon Russell and Yes. The will-o’-the-wisp is also referred to during the song “Maria” in The Sound of Music.[31]

The will o’ the wisp also appears in the song “skylark” sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Maxine Sullivan and others

Part 3, Scene 12 of Berlioz’ “The Damnation of Faust” is entitled “Menuet des follets” – “Minuet of the Wills-o’-the-Wisp”.

[edit]Visual media

Will-o’-the-wisp phenomena have appeared in numerous computer games (such as Everquest and the Elder Scrolls series) and tabletop games (including Dungeons and Dragonsand Magic: the Gathering), frequently with reference to folklore of the phenomena misleading or harming travellers. The Final Fantasy series also pays tribute to the tradition of a will-o’-the-wisp being a lantern-carrying individual, with the Tonberry creature.

In television, Willo the Wisp appeared as a short cartoon series on BBC TV in the 1980s, voiced by Kenneth Williams.

Will-o’-the-wisps also make an appearance in the Disney/Pixar film Brave.

[edit]Reported light locations

[edit]See also

[edit]References

[edit]Footnotes

  1. ^ Marie Trevelyan (1909). Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales. London. p. 178. Retrieved 2010-09-18.
  2. ^ “Ghost Lights and Orbs”. Moonslipper.com. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  3. ^ Stephen Wagner. “Spooklights: Where to Find Them”About.com. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
  4. ^ Randall Floyd (1997). “Historical Mysteries: Ghostly lights as common as dew in Dixie”Augusta Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
  5. ^ Mark Hoerrner (2006). “History of the Jack-O-Lantern”buzzle.com. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  6. ^ “World Myth” page 113[dead link]
  7. ^ “lambent – alphaDictionary * Free English On-line Dictionary”. Alphadictionary.com. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  8. ^ “House Shadow Drake – Water Horses and Other Fairy Steeds”. Shadowdrake.com. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  9. ^ “Colypixy”. Pandius.com. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  10. ^ Folklore of Guernsey by Marie de Garis (1986) ASIN: B0000EE6P8.
  11. ^ “Bengali Ghosts; byAmbarish Pandey; Apr 7, 2009; PAKISTANTIMES website”. Pak-times.com. 2009-04-07. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  12. ^ “Blog post by the author Saundra Mitchel of the novel “Shadowed Summer” at Books Obsession”. Booksobsession.blogspot.com. 2009-10-09. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  13. a b Ghost lights that dance on Banni grasslands when it’s very dark; by D V Maheshwari; August 28, 2007; The Indian Express Newspaper
  14. ^ “I read somewhere that on dark nights there are strange lights that dance on the Rann. The locals call them cheer batti or ghost lights. It’s a phenomenon widely documented but not explained.” SOURCE: Stark beauty (Rann of Kutch); Bharati Motwani; September 23, 2008; India Today Magazine, Cached: Page 2 of 3 page article with these search terms highlighted: cheer batti ghost lights rann kutch [1], Cached: Complete View – 3 page article seen as a single page [2]
  15. ^ Hall, Jamie. Half Human, Half Animal: Tales of Werewolves and Related Creatures. Bloomington, Indiana: Authorhouse, 2003. 142.
  16. ^ Mizuki, Shigeru. “Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms”. 講談社, 1985. ISBN 978-4-06-202381-8 (4-06-202381-4).
  17. ^ “ref”. Terrabrasileira.net. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  18. a b c d e Pettigrew, John D. (March 2003). “The Min Min light and the Fata Morgana. An optical account of a mysterious Australian phenomenon” (PDF). Clin Exp Optom 86(2): 109–20. DOI:10.1111/j.1444-0938.2003.tb03069.xPMID 12643807.
  19. a b Kozicka, M.G. “The Mystery of the Min Min Light. Cairns”, Bolton Imprint
  20. ^ “Download Attachment”. Luigi.garlaschelli.googlepages.com. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  21. ^ Owens, J.G., 1891. “Folk-Lore from Buffalo Valley.” Journal of American Folk-lore. 4:123-4.
  22. ^ Persinger, M.A. (1993). Perceptual and Motor Skills. “Geophysical variables and behavior: LXXIV. Man-made fluid injections into the crust and reports of luminous phenomena (UFO Reports) — Is the strain field an aseismically propagating hydrological pulse?”.
  23. ^ Derr, J.S. (1993). Perceptual and Motor Skills. “Seasonal hydrological load and regional luminous phenomena (UFO reports) within river systems: the Mississippi Valley test.”.
  24. ^ A Review of accounts of luminosity in Barn Owls Tyto alba.
  25. ^ entry on will-o’-the-wisp in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved
  26. ^ Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”Electronic Text Center. Retrieved 2007-05-30.
  27. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. “The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”.
  28. ^ Bram Stoker. “Dracula”The Free Library. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
  29. ^ “Lyrics from “El amor brujo””. Web.archive.org. 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  30. ^ “Discography » Magnolia Electric Co. – Sojourner Box Set”. Magnolia Electric Co.. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  31. ^ “The Sound of Music – Maria Lyrics”. Lyricsmania.com. Retrieved 2011-11-18.

[edit]Notations

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Will-o’-the-wisps

[edit]External links

The Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty

Peaceful nuclear explosions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes, such as activities related to economic development including the creation of canals. During the 1960s and 1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted a number of PNEs.
Six of the explosions by the Soviet Union are considered to have been of an applied nature, not just tests.
Subsequently the United States and the Soviet Union halted their programs. Definitions and limits are covered in the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty of 1976. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 prohibits all nuclear explosions, regardless of whether they are for peaceful purposes or not.
Contents [hide]
1 The Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty
2 United States: Operation Plowshare
3 Soviet Union: Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy
4 Other nations
5 Spaceflight Applications
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
[edit]The Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty

In the PNE Treaty the signatories agreed: not to carry out any individual nuclear explosions having a yield exceeding 150 kilotons; not to carry out any group explosion (consisting of a number of individual explosions) having an aggregate yield exceeding 1,500 kilotons; and not to carry out any group explosion having an aggregate yield exceeding 150 kilotons unless the individual explosions in the group could be identified and measured by agreed verification procedures. The parties also reaffirmed their obligations to comply fully with the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
The parties reserve the right to carry out nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes in the territory of another country if requested to do so, but only in full compliance with the yield limitations and other provisions of the PNE Treaty and in accord with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Articles IV and V of the PNE Treaty set forth the agreed verification arrangements. In addition to the use of national technical means, the Treaty states that information and access to sites of explosions will be provided by each side, and includes a commitment not to interfere with verification means and procedures.
The protocol to the PNE Treaty sets forth the specific agreed arrangements for ensuring that no weapon-related benefits precluded by the Threshold Test Ban Treaty are derived by carrying out a nuclear explosion used for peaceful purposes, including provisions for use of the hydrodynamic yield measurement method, seismic monitoring and on-site inspection.
The agreed statement that accompanies the Treaty specifies that a “peaceful application” of an underground nuclear explosion would not include the developmental testing of any nuclear explosive.
[edit]United States: Operation Plowshare

One of the Chariot schemes involved chaining five thermonuclear devices to create the artificial harbor.
Operation Plowshare was the name of the U.S. program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful purposes. The name was coined in 1961, taken from Micah 4:3 (“And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”). Twenty-eight nuclear blasts were detonated between 1961 and 1973.
One of the first U.S. proposals for peaceful nuclear explosions that came close to being carried out was Project Chariot, which would have used several hydrogen bombs to create an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska. It was never carried out due to concerns for the native populations and the fact that there was little potential use for the harbor to justify its risk and expense. There was also talk of using nuclear explosions to excavate a second Panama Canal.[1]
The largest excavation experiment took place in 1962 at the Department of Energy’s Nevada Test Site. The Sedan nuclear test carried out as part of Operation Storax displaced 12 million tons of earth, creating the largest man-made crater in the world, generating a large nuclear fallout over Nevada and Utah. Three tests were conducted in order to stimulate natural gas production, but the effort was abandoned as impractical because of cost and radioactive contamination of the gas.[2][3]
There were many negative impacts from Project Plowshare’s 27 nuclear explosions. For example, the Gasbuggy site,[3] located 55 miles east of Farmington, New Mexico, still contains nuclear contamination from a single subsurface blast in 1967.[4] Other consequences included blighted land, relocated communities, tritium-contaminated water, radioactivity, and fallout from debris being hurled high into the atmosphere. These were ignored and downplayed until the program was terminated in 1977, due in large part to public opposition, after $770 million had been spent on the project.[5]
[edit]Soviet Union: Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy

The Soviet Union conducted a much more vigorous program of 239 nuclear tests, some with multiple devices, between 1965 and 1988 under the auspices of Program No. 6 and Program No. 7-Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy. Its aims and results were similar to those of the American effort, with the exception that many of the blasts were considered applications, not tests.[6] The best known of these in the West was the Chagan test in January 1965 as radioactivity from the Chagan test was detected over Japan by both the U.S. and Japan. The United States complained to the Soviets, but the matter was dropped.
In the 1970, the Soviet Union started the “Deep Seismic Sounding” Program, that included the use of peaceful nuclear explosions to create seismic deep profiles. Compared to the usage of conventional explosives or mechanical methods, nuclear explosions allow the collection of longer seismic profiles (up to several thousand kilometers).[7]
There are proponents for continuing the PNE programs in modern Russia. They (e.g. A. Koldobsky) state that the program already paid for itself and saved the USSR billions of rubles and can save even more if continued. They also allege that the PNE is the only feasible way to put out large fountains and fires on natural gas deposits and the safest and most economically viable way to destroy chemical weapons.
Their opponents (include the academician A.V. Yablokov) [8] state that all PNE technologies have non-nuclear alternatives and that many PNEs actually caused nuclear disasters.
Reports on the successful Soviet use of nuclear explosions in extinguishing out-of-control gas well fires were widely cited in United States policy discussions of options for stopping the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[9][10]
[edit]Other nations

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.
Germany at one time considered manufacturing nuclear explosives for civil engineering purposes. In the early 1970s a feasibility study was conducted for a project to build a canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Qattara Depression in the Western Desert of Egypt using nuclear demolition. This project proposed to use 213 devices, with yields of 1 to 1.5 megatons detonated at depths of 100 to 500 m, to build this canal for the purpose of producing hydroelectric power.
The Smiling Buddha, India’s first explosive nuclear device was described by the Indian Government as a peaceful nuclear explosion.
In Australia proposed blasting was put forward as a way of mining Iron Ore in the Pilbara [11]
[edit]Spaceflight Applications

Nuclear explosions have been studied as a possible method of spacecraft propulsion. The most well known example was Project Orion, which studied the possibility of a spacecraft propelled by the detonation of nuclear devices which it released behind itself.
Another application would be for deflecting or destroying celestial objects like comets, meteors, or asteroids on a collision course with Earth that have the potential for causing destruction.
[edit]See also

Project Gnome
[edit]References

^ “US Congressional Record pg. 25747, 1968-09-05”. Retrieved 2012-01-22.
^ U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management: Rulison, Colorado, Site. Fact Sheet [1].
^ a b Peter Metzger (February 22, 1970). Project Gasbuggy And Catch-85*: *That’s krypton-85, one of the radioactive by-products of nuclear explosions that release natural gas Project Gasbuggy and Catch-85 “It’s 95 per cent safe? We worry about the other 5”. New York Times. p. SM14.
^ “DOE Environmental Management (EM) – Gas Buggy Site”. Em.doe.gov. Retrieved 2010-09-19.
^ Benjamin K. Sovacool (2011). Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power: A Critical Global Assessment of Atomic Energy, World Scientific, pp. 171-172.
^ Nordyke, M. D. (2000-09-01). The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. pp. 34–35. DOI:10.2172/793554. Report no.: UCRL-ID-124410 Rev 2. U. S. Department of Energy contract no.: W-7405-Eng48.
^ University of Wyoming: http://w3.uwyo.edu/~seismic/dss/
^ “А. В. ЯБЛОКОВ, “ЯДЕРНАЯ МИФОЛОГИЯ КОНЦА XX ВЕКА””. Biometrica.tomsk.ru. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
^ Broad, William J. (2010-06-02). “Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says”. New York Times. Retrieved 2010-06-18.
^ Astrasheuskaya, Nastassia; Judah, Ben; Selyukh, Alina (2010-07-02). “Special Report: Should BP nuke its leaking well?”. Reuters. Retrieved 2010-07-08.
^ Nuclear blasting proposed for Pilbara Iron Ore Project in Industrial Reviews and Mining Year Book, 1970 pp.255-259
[edit]External links

Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Commission
Video of the 104Kt Sedan PNE as part of Operation Plowshare.
Video of the Soviet Chagan PNE
Video of the Soviet Taiga PNE
On the Soviet nuclear program
On the Soviet program for peaceful uses of nuclear weapons, American Office of Scientific and Technical Information
United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 through September 1992 (DOE/NV-209 [Rev.14]).
ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS,Federation of American Scientists
World Reaction to the Indian Nuclear Tests, Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Nuclear Files.org Treaty between the USA and USSR on underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes
Peter Kuran’s “Atomic Journeys” – documentary film includes tests of Peaceful nuclear Explosions.
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