Electrical engineers? UFO help

[kittynh]

Once again from the askanexpert UFO site I have a question I cannot answer. I did inform the person that just because you have a different electrical provider it doesn't mean all the electricity is kept seperate. I mean, it's all just out there!

This isn't very UFO ish, so I'm really out of my field here!

HELP!!!!


Question is shown below
I was driving to my girlfriend's house tonight when over the hills the
sky
seemed to light up with an electric blue color. Just as this happened,
my
car radio went out for a few seconds. A minute later, the same thing
happened yet again. When I arrived to her house, she said her power
had
flashed twice, and when I returned home, I found our power, even though
we
have a seperate electricity provider, also went out for a second, two
times. Do you know what may have caused this odd phenomena?

[kmortis]

Well, it does seem to have certain characteristics of an EMP/Lightning event. Going on what you have provided, it would be difficult to diagnos.

A few general comments that will surely be corrected by the likes of Hans shortly.

1) While it is true that here in the northeast we "share a grid", as a general rule, crossing power providers will isolate you from conducted phenomenon. This holds true unless there is a catastophic failure of the grid, as seen a couple of years ago.
2) How did he find out that his power has flashed?
3) Did the timing of his power flashing conincide with his friends?
4) Was it storming at the time?
5) With the car radio being involved, I'd lean more toward a radiated effect (hence my initial thought of EMP/Lightning) rather than a conducted one. Although, depending on the distance between his friend's and his own place, some conducted emissions could be involved.
6) What general locality is this person in? The US/Canada? Europe? Asia? What part?

So, the short answer is, kittynh, I dunno. Not enough info, really.

[BillC]

The brief loss of power was caused by a flashover, trip of the circuit and then restoration by autoclosure equipment.

A 'different elecricty provider' could mean various things. Here in the UK, for example, one company is the 'wires owner', and any company can contract to supply you power down it. They all go out if the wires gets struck by lightning, though!

Alternatively, the high-voltage transmission line could have been struck by lightning, affecting customers belonging to a number of smaller distribution companies.

[kittynh]

Ohhh good! Please more answers! Got to get rid of the "aliens blasted us with radiation" fear!

[BillC]

Of course, the line probably tripped because of a three-phase-to-earth bridge by a UFO...

[kittynh]

I'm just bumping as I want a lot of replies...these people are stubborn...

[BillC]

My company wanted to do some planned flashovers on a 400 kV transmission line in order to test the trip and auto-reclose equipment. The line ran close to a public road and the police were concerned that the flash (an arc several metres long) would dazzle motorists and cause an accident. So they insisted on being present and stopped the traffic.

And caused an accident.

[BillC]

I'm just bumping as I want a lot of replies...these people are stubborn...Can you point us to their messages?

[kittynh]

well, the one reply is that "the weather was fine". Can you have a lightening strike with "clear" weather? He thinks it might have rained shortly after all this...

[BillC]

You can get a flashover at any time, due to: pollution on the insulators; debris such as a piece of wet polythene being blown on to the conductors; or as Ohio First Energy discovered in 2003, from the conductor being encroached by a tree.

[Beanbag]

Any number of things can cause a flash-over. A build-up of conductive salts or dust on the insulators (common at the seaside), a mylar balloon with a metallic ribbon "string" drifting down across the wires, or a large bird or animal nesting on/running across the conductors. I was about thirty feet away from a "squirrel hit" across a power line, and almost had to change my underwear. Very loud and totally unexpected. The only thing left was a charred tail hanging from the insulators.

Lightning does strike without rain quite often. A lot of range and forest fires start with dry lightning.

A few years back, I was heading back at night towards Fort Worth (TX) on I-20, well past any signs of civilization. Moonless night, no artificial lights nearby. Pitch black except for headlights. Suddenly, everything went white for an instant on the south side of the highway. The high-tension lines running along the highway arced over. It was instantaneous and incredible, especially because my eyes were so well dark-adapted. I knew instantly what happened, having seen it before on a not-so-dark occasion, so I didn't lose control, though several cars swerved. Compared to car headlights, the arc was blue-white, not something people are used to seeing. I can understand the "alien death ray" appearance. It seems longer than it really is because of persistance of vision, especially if your night vision has kicked in before the flash.

Beanbag

Edited for spelling defectz.

[BillC]

Compared to car headlights, the arc was blue-white, not something people are used to seeing. I can understand the "alien death ray" appearance.Yup. High voltage live-line workers wear coloured goggles to prevent UV radiation causing damaging 'arc-eye'.

[WildCat]

I'm sorry! I was taking a tour of the power plant and there was this big red button that said "do not push" on it. Curiosity overcame me and I pushed it... please don't tell anyone! :boxedin:

[Soapy Sam]

Kittynh- I'd suggest to him that he investigates what "separate electricity provider" actually means.
Are we talking totally separate grid, or simply different billing system?

The sky lit up with an electric blue colour. Note the word " electric". This may have been the blindingly obvious- summer lightning- or an arc from a transformer or power line quite close to his car.
Either might have caused the radio interference.

If he and his girlfriend live close enough to drive between- I'll assume 20 miles or less- the chances of a brief power cut due to flashover affecting them both are pretty high. I'd suggest he asks around. Maybe lots of folk had the same experience.

This is so normal it's hard to see how someone old enough to drive would not have experienced it. Maybe power companies are getting too reliable.

[kittynh]

I know, we have small power outages all the time. I just kept wondering what was so odd about this that the guy would ask the UFO expert about it. What made him think "UFO" rather than weird weather or electrical thingy?

[Pidge]

Have a look at this link (http://teslamania.delete.org/frames/longarc.htm#500_kV_Switch). The movie clip is a worthwhile watch.

Actually, the whole page is pretty interesting.

[BillC]

And that's the reason why we don't open disconnectors on load, class.


ETA: You're right, Pidge. The whole page is interesting, thanks for posting it. Kind of like a substation snuff movie, I guess.

[Hamradioguy]

Hey Kittynh, BillC and Beanbah have it right. We get this situation now and then on our rural system here. The local term is "recloser action" BillC may have more "techie" details if you like. Our reclosers are set to pop like a circuit breaker then close whenever there is a fault on the line (tree branch or even ancient insulator breaking down- you don't need a storm or lightning). These devices will cycle like this I think three times then lock open. So sometimes you get a brief interruption or two or three and if the fault clears the lights come back on and stay on. Other times after a couple of cycles the go off and stay off. (And you look for candles/flashlights and call the utility). Our local primary line is around 7,000 volts phase to phase. Major distribution lines are much more. I can assure you when there is a flashover you see it- quite spectacular, but no need for aliens......although that would sure be far more interesting than a simple electrical fault.

[Z]

Or... if they're near a sizable military base, there are allegedly high-power communication systems that can cause short-range EMP disruptions during use. We were told this one - it may well be a mere military legend - while stationed at Fort Bragg, NC. And on rare occasion, the local grid, stoplights, and auto power all went out at the same time, for a few seconds. But never with a blue flash of light - at least, these outages all happened during the day, so I doubt we'd have noticed much light activity. Another exotic yet vaguely plausible explanation is that the military DOES test EMP weaponry from time to time, including (allegedly) satellite-based EMP systems. A short, weak burst could effectively test range and ability without causing more than a brief outage, and might well be accompanied by such a flash.

But unless these guys are living on or near a military base, I'd suggest a natural explanation, like some unusual lightning activity, or a more man-made cause, such as explained by others, above. And remind them: causing a pair of short-term outages would serve no purpose for visiting aliens, and we cannot blame their ships, since presumably their ships are far more advanced than our craft, and WE can shield them from leaking harmful radiation...

This reminds me of that kook who was on a while back claiming that microwave dishes could knock out advanced alien starcraft... like alien tech would be THAT pathetic? Puh-leeeze.

[Xeriar]

Or... if they're near a sizable military base, there are allegedly high-power communication systems that can cause short-range EMP disruptions during use. We were told this one - it may well be a mere military legend - while stationed at Fort Bragg, NC. And on rare occasion, the local grid, stoplights, and auto power all went out at the same time, for a few seconds. But never with a blue flash of light - at least, these outages all happened during the day, so I doubt we'd have noticed much light activity. Another exotic yet vaguely plausible explanation is that the military DOES test EMP weaponry from time to time, including (allegedly) satellite-based EMP systems. A short, weak burst could effectively test range and ability without causing more than a brief outage, and might well be accompanied by such a flash.

A blue-white flash to me suggests that something went sparkspark. Though it could be any number of things going sparkspark, I suppose.

The military probably avoids testing EMP weaponry anywhere near civilized areas, given the insane range a freak incident may have, especially in an upper atmosphere test.

[kmortis]

The military probably avoids testing EMP weaponry anywhere near civilized areas, given the insane range a freak incident may have, especially in an upper atmosphere test.

Yes and no. There are some defence contractors who built their test areas away from population only to have population build up around them. Granted, we TRY to limit our testing in those areas, but there are times that it's unavoidable. No, I don't know of any EMP weapons being tested at these facilities, but pulsed RADAR does a number on commercial electronics.

Anyhoo, I think the power line/sub-station arc over has the highest probablity of being our source.

[Hellbound]

One more thing to point out about power outages.

The circuits of the various companies all interconnect at some point, and in all cases power companies have "fail-over" relays. Not sure if that's the technically accurate term, but basically if power fails (due to a down line, blown transformer, whatever), the lines automatically swithc to another, backup route to provide power.

In many cases, the fail-overs actually can pull power from another companies grid (or route through their lines) to continue service to some areas (the companies usually work out these details amongst themselves). When a poer failure occurs, and the failover flips to restore power, it is possible to have the new grid, through which power is now being routed, fail as well. This is, in fact, the same type of situation that caused the huge blackouts in New York (on a larger scale there, of course). When one circuit fails, all of a sudden another circuit is carrying twice the load it normally carries. While nominally designed for such a load, the stress is likely to cause any already weakened areas of the circuit to fail (stressed cables, poorly maintained transformers, etc).

A simple and, IMO, likely scenario is that a lightning strike shut power to one area (also cuasing his radio interference), and the failover switched to the other companies circuit, overloading it temporarily and causing his pwoer outage at home.

Just another theory to throw in the pot :)

[BillC]

Kind of. It's generally not a case of the power companies' circuits interconnecting at one point, but rather that there is an interconnected network that provides the necessary resilience and fault tolerance. Generators feed into this grid at certain points, and distributors take load off at others. Generally, when one circuit fails, it's not a case of the lines beiong switched to an alternative route, but rather that the parallel paths immediately pick up the slack. (There is something similar to what you suggested, called hot standby, but it's not often used in this context.)

Imagine a heavy weight supported by a number of elastic strings, some of which are slightly longer than others. The shorter ones are bearing the most weight, of course, and have the greatest degree of stretch. (The weight borne by each string is analagous to the MW flow on each transmission line). If you cut one of the elastic strings or it snaps, the weight is transferred immediately to all the remaining strings. Perhaps one of these will go beyond its limit as well, and snap. More and more strings can break -- called cascade tripping -- until the weight falls, i.e the load is blacked out.

[Soapy Sam]

Power company finances interact too. I'm betting these two people get their power from the same source, but via different end sellers.

Pidge- Thanks for that link. Very cool indeed.

[Hamradioguy]

Since the matter of EMP-ElectroMagnetic Pulse- has been raised here, a few comments on THAT pehnomonon might be in order (as it seems to come up sometimes when UFO effects are discussed). Technically any kind of very short burst of electromagnetic energy is an EMP but it most commonly is used to refer to effects associated with high altitude nuclear explosions. (It's found in ground and low altitude bursts too, but isn't of concern in these). The characteristics and effects on surrounding objects are similar to lightning produced EMP but the Nuclear EMP (nEMP) is of a much shorter pulse with a much faster rise time. A good lightning protector may well not be very good at protecting against a nEMP but if you have good nEMP protection it will do just fine against a lightning induced EMP.
What may be of interest to some here is that the National Communications System did very extensive testing of EMP protective devices for amateur (ham) radio equipment back in the 1980s. The Project Officer was Dr. Dennis Bodson and the results of the tests can be found in the non-classified Technical Information Bulletin 85-10. Turns out that while, yes, some power line circuit breakers in Hawaii did trip as a result of a high altitude nuclear test in the south Pacific, communciations equipment, even modern transistorized radios, are fairly resistant to EMP effects provided they don't have long antennas attached. Further, with antennas disconnected or with fairly simple (and inexpensive) EMP protection installed, all the radios survived EMP effects just fine. (No need to wrap 'em in tinfoil and or seal them in metal breadboxes as we were told to do at the height of the Cold War.) There's also a lot of good info on this subject in FEMA publication CPG 2-17 if you can find a copy.
The bottom line is that while nEMP and nearby lightning strikes CAN damage electronic equipment, neither is likely to cause extensive damage over large areas, and protection against both is relatively simple and inexpensive.
Probablly far more than you want to know about EMP effects, but it's perhaps good to know that an EMP, whether from a military "death ray" or a UFO, isn't likely to cause the kind of disasterous effects we have been led to believe (EMP generally has no effects on humans BTW)

[kmortis]

Since the matter of EMP-ElectroMagnetic Pulse- has been raised here, a few comments on THAT pehnomonon might be in order (as it seems to come up sometimes when UFO effects are discussed). Technically any kind of very short burst of electromagnetic energy is an EMP but it most commonly is used to refer to effects associated with high altitude nuclear explosions. (It's found in ground and low altitude bursts too, but isn't of concern in these). The characteristics and effects on surrounding objects are similar to lightning produced EMP but the Nuclear EMP (nEMP) is of a much shorter pulse with a much faster rise time. A good lightning protector may well not be very good at protecting against a nEMP but if you have good nEMP protection it will do just fine against a lightning induced EMP.
What may be of interest to some here is that the National Communications System did very extensive testing of EMP protective devices for amateur (ham) radio equipment back in the 1980s. The Project Officer was Dr. Dennis Bodson and the results of the tests can be found in the non-classified Technical Information Bulletin 85-10. Turns out that while, yes, some power line circuit breakers in Hawaii did trip as a result of a high altitude nuclear test in the south Pacific, communciations equipment, even modern transistorized radios, are fairly resistant to EMP effects provided they don't have long antennas attached. Further, with antennas disconnected or with fairly simple (and inexpensive) EMP protection installed, all the radios survived EMP effects just fine. (No need to wrap 'em in tinfoil and or seal them in metal breadboxes as we were told to do at the height of the Cold War.) There's also a lot of good info on this subject in FEMA publication CPG 2-17 if you can find a copy.
The bottom line is that while nEMP and nearby lightning strikes CAN damage electronic equipment, neither is likely to cause extensive damage over large areas, and protection against both is relatively simple and inexpensive.
Probablly far more than you want to know about EMP effects, but it's perhaps good to know that an EMP, whether from a military "death ray" or a UFO, isn't likely to cause the kind of disasterous effects we have been led to believe (EMP generally has no effects on humans BTW)
Right. For most equipment, the worst effects are recoverable. The event will shut it down, or give it the blue willies (a highly technical term meaning that it goes into an unstable state) that can be recovered by restartng the equpiment. For coms gear, this event can be more severe (for the reason of the antenna coupling more of the energy into the front end), and for aircraft it can be fatal, not for the reason that it burns up the electronics, but that the pilot doesn't have the time to restart everything.

Those of us in the defence industry do get HEMP (High altitude EMP), SGEMP (Space Generated EMP), and a few other variation on the EMP theme requirements flowed down by the procuring agency (contract speak for the Military branch that's buying the item). Hamradio is correct that most lightning protection will help protect against most EMP, but it's not always then end-all be all.

By far the hardest thing to protect against is Lightning. It has multiple waveforms (from a fairly short, 120 usec, rise time to a 10 MHz sine wave), an astounding amplitude (I recenly had a program that required 1000 Amps or 3000 Volts) and that's just the indirect effects.

So...does anyof this help, Kittynh?

[Luke T.]

Military EMP weapons! Ha ha ha! You guys crack me up.

We had a fire control radar that could wreak havoc on a town's neon lights from quite a distance. Radar.

You can sometimes hear radar interference on your car radio, too, if you know what to listen for.

But anyway, to the OP.

I've seen a power transformer go up. Blinding light. The brightest thing I've ever seen outside of the sun.

Radio stations are not immune to power outages. Of course his car radio "went out". Nothing magical there. Geezus!

And it is a good question as to how he knows the power went out in his house TWICE for a second each time.

[Luke T.]

I know, we have small power outages all the time. I just kept wondering what was so odd about this that the guy would ask the UFO expert about it. What made him think "UFO" rather than weird weather or electrical thingy?

Because with no intellect, life is freaking BORING and PEDESTRIAN and NORMAL without UFOs or pregnant lesbian psychics hooked on crack on the next Jerry Springer.

[kmortis]

Military EMP weapons! Ha ha ha! You guys crack me up.

We had a fire control radar that could wreak havoc on a town's neon lights from quite a distance. Radar.

You can sometimes hear radar interference on your car radio, too, if you know what to listen for.

But anyway, to the OP.

I've seen a power transformer go up. Blinding light. The brightest thing I've ever seen outside of the sun.

Radio stations are not immune to power outages. Of course his car radio "went out". Nothing magical there. Geezus!

And it is a good question as to how he knows the power went out in his house TWICE for a second each time.
Well, yeah, RADAR will do quite the number on electronics. Especially the higher power military pulsed jobbies. The things that SPY-3 can do....

[Hamradioguy]

Well, yeah, RADAR will do quite the number on electronics. Especially the higher power military pulsed jobbies. The things that SPY-3 can do....
True enough, Kmortis. And indirectly at least to unwary humans. I recall the story many years ago about a chap photographing an operating radar set up when he inadvertently walked into the beam. He had several flashbulbs stuffed in his back pocket and ended up with burned pants and didn't sit down for a few days. And I remember a neat photo of an operating radar taken with a time exposure and the photographer simply tossing a large flashbulb up into the beam.
Who needs space aliens what with HV transformers blowing up and military radars setting someones pants on fire? Much more interesting!

[kmortis]

True enough, Kmortis. And indirectly at least to unwary humans. I recall the story many years ago about a chap photographing an operating radar set up when he inadvertently walked into the beam. He had several flashbulbs stuffed in his back pocket and ended up with burned pants and didn't sit down for a few days. And I remember a neat photo of an operating radar taken with a time exposure and the photographer simply tossing a large flashbulb up into the beam.
Who needs space aliens what with HV transformers blowing up and military radars setting someones pants on fire? Much more interesting!
Of course (at lest according to Raytheon lore) without people walking across the (either main beam of a low power or a side lobe of a high power) beam of RADAR, we wouldn't have microwave ovens....silly Charlie.

[Luke T.]

True enough, Kmortis. And indirectly at least to unwary humans. I recall the story many years ago about a chap photographing an operating radar set up when he inadvertently walked into the beam. He had several flashbulbs stuffed in his back pocket and ended up with burned pants and didn't sit down for a few days. And I remember a neat photo of an operating radar taken with a time exposure and the photographer simply tossing a large flashbulb up into the beam.
Who needs space aliens what with HV transformers blowing up and military radars setting someones pants on fire? Much more interesting!

Birds used to drop dead in mid-flight when they flew in front of our ship's radar. We counted 26 dead birds in one day when we were off the coast of Haiti.

[Hellbound]

I was working with a Patriot unit for a while when I was active, and we had the same thing. They'd rope off a cone about 50 foot long and maybe 30' wide at the far end, as the "do not walk here' area.

Of course, talking about microwaves, it was handy for heating up food. Just tie it to a string, toss it up around the dish, pull down later. Nice, hot meal :) Of course, then there was the problem of explaining to the operators why they had that large, close, 'uknown object' designation on the radar screen inside...

[Rockin' Rick]

I work with high voltage as well. Seen all sorts of interesting arcs. My equipment operates at 33KV at about 8A. There is some very delicate circuit monitors that shut the system down to prevent damage to equipment. A "crowbar" circuit basically drops a dead short accross the supply to discharge capacitors. It's estimated to be somewhere are a zillion joules or some barely unmeasurable amount of energy. Components can throw a bright blue arc, glow red hot, and it throws of tons of x-rays.

Or perhaps the Romulans used their disrupters on your power station.

[bruto]

When I was a kid I lived on a hill with a pretty good view out my window down the adjoining valley. There were a lot of trees, but just about anything that made light for a good distance was visible. One night, I looked out my window to see a very bright blue-white glow about a half mile down the road. I called my parents and they saw it too. I later heard that it had been seen by many other people in the village below. It lasted a couple of minutes at least. Then the lights went out all over town. UFO's? Secret weapons? Nope. It was a squirrel. A very very unlucky but briefly astonishingly incandescent squirrel. It would be hard to imagine how one little squirrel would make that much light for that long a time, and black out a whole town, but there it is.

[c4ts]

I can't quite remember the details, but a year or two ago, on this very board, someone linked to an obscure news article about a U.F.O. that turned out to be an electrocuted cat.

[Ducky]

You are all wrong. I was secretly testing my new weapon against woo alt.med nutters. This was required before my upgrade to the titanium spine. The lasers weren't powerful enough.

See my avatar for more details.

[bruto]

By the way, I should mention that in that squirrel story above, the arc itself was not what killed the power. It would have gone on longer, but the squirrel caught fire, and it was the fire that caused the outage. I must stress again that the light emitted by an arcing squirrel can be truly prodigious!

[MRC_Hans]

Notice I was expected to comment, so I'll do, knowing that I may just be repeating an already given answer:

Assuming all observations are accurate, we see the description of two power drop-outs. The light phenomenon may or may not be connected, a flashover has already been mentioned.

Power grids are connected together over large areas, even if different parts ahve different poviders. This gives an increased suppply security, at the price of outages or dropouts occasionally spreading over large areas.

So, for whatever reason, power dropped out twice, affecting the home of the person telling the story, the people he/she was visiting, and the radio transmitting station. End of story. Oh, and at the same time, there was a flash of light, which may or may not be connected to the dropouts. :rolleyes:

Hans