The Strangest thing I’ve Ever Seen

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen? Think back. A ghost? Phosphorescence in the sea at night? An honest politician? We’ve all seen something that truly baffles us. Top of my list would have to be Trump’s inauguration – I’d call it black comedy if it wasn’t so serious. One moment the world was relatively normal and the next we’re all eating fresh shit sandwiches. Second on my list is a natural phenomenon, something –unlike Trump- that I can get my head around as a scientist. Kinda.

I once saw ball lightning; something so utterly bizarre that it took a while and a lot of wine for those of us who saw it to convince ourselves that we’d actually seen it.  A true “What the fuck was that?” moment.

My wife and I own a cabin on a small lake in a steep sided valley near Pemberton, 45 minutes from Whistler. The lake’s about a mile long and notoriously difficult to fish. So, we don’t bother, although visitors to the cabin have claimed success over the years hooking the odd trout. We just choose to disbelieve them. High tension power lines run down either side of the lake and cut through our property. When it rains, the lines crackle ominously with static electricity from the high-voltage power load heading to Vancouver. It’s a bit unnerving at first but you get used to it.

We were staying at the cabin for a few days with my brother-in-law and his family. The weather was hot, and the forest fire hazard warning was at Extreme so no open fires or BBQs. One night, we went out onto the deck to watch a lightning storm down the valley; spectacular stuff but it always brings a risk of forest fires.

Out of nowhere, we spotted a ball of orange light floating slowly along the power line towards our cabin, three to four meters above the line and moving at a fast walking pace. At first, we thought it might be a Chinese lantern but none of the locals living around the lake would be dumb enough to launch one in forest fire season. As it got closer, I could see that it was vaguely tear drop shaped with the tail of the drop pointing upwards. There was no sound from it and no other sensory inputs; no smell, no static tingle. It floated along the line to just past our cabin, and then stopped tracking the powerline and took off to the south over the end of the lake till we lost sight. A few minutes of stunned silence ensued, punctuated with the odd whispered “fuck me”.

I took an educated guess as to what it was; a friend of mine described seeing something similar once on a passenger plane that had been hit by lightning. He was taking an internal flight in Canada. Part way through the flight there was loud bang as the plane was struck by lightning, and almost immediately, a bright ball of white light floated sedately down the aisle of the plane, between two rows of terrified passengers, towards the back where it disappeared through the metal wall at the tail. Just what you need on a plane ride, eh? Huge flash-bang, lots of screaming and then a ghostly white ball of static electricity suddenly appears from nowhere to calm your nerves as you brace for impact.

I’ve looked long and hard for photos or videos of what we saw that night. Finally, I found something that looks like it. If you click on the youtube link below, you’ll see something similar about 3 minutes 50 seconds in, once you get past the annoying Russian Mr. Chekov narrator that is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPkupFNev50

So there you have it. The strangest thing I’ve ever seen. Anyone else seen anything like it?