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We may look down on all the primitive peoples who are confused by lightning and think thunder is the voice of the gods, but the truth is to this very day there are natural phenomena that our scientists still don't being to understand. We're talking about events that are witnessed by thousands, photographed, well-documented and yet are utterly baffling. Such as... #7.
Naga Fireballs
What would you do if you were walking along a tropical river at night and it suddenly began burping up egg-sized balls of red light? It happens every year in October along the Mekong river (the same one featured in classic Vietnam movies like Rambo II and the flashbacks from Rambo III). The phenomenon is known as the Naga Fireballs, and experts agree that it is "just weird as shit."
What happens is this: starting under water, tens to thousands of glowing red lights are seen rising out from the bottom of the river, then lifting hundreds of feet into the sky before disappearing. It literally appears that the river is spitting out flaming M&Ms. They have never harmed anyone, and don't even seem to touch anything let alone set anything on fire. However, both of those facts were probably unavailable to dull the ferocity of the pant-crapping that took place when the event was first witnessed.
The Naga Fireballs are viewed by thousands of people every year, and a healthy number of videos documenting the phenomenon are hosted on YouTube, which is the most reliable scientific journal on the Internet next to Wikipedia. So, What do the Smart People Think is Happening? The number one theory suggests that fermented sediment in the river, things such as decomposing remains and animal waste, release bubbles of self-immolating gas that rise to the surface and combust. That's right, the best explanation science has come up with for the Naga fireballs is essentially that it eats too much meat. Suspiciously absent from this theory is a reason why the phenomenon occurs around the same time every year. Unless the Mekong eats a regimented diet of Activia yogurt, those meat eaters among us have to be somewhat suspicious of such a regular rate of expulsion.
The locals are simply unwilling to accept any scientific explanation for the Naga Fireballs, preferring to preserve a sense of mysticism. Scooby-Doo could roll up in the Mystery Machine and uncover a giant underwater cannon shooting phosphorous balls into the sky and he'd probably be told to fuck off. Also, they would probably eat him. #6.
Star Jelly
It is no surprise that shit falls from the sky during a meteor shower (that's pretty much 90 percent of the definition). But sometimes what rockets to the Earth is not what you would expect. Rather than a big hunk of stone or metal, sometimes people find what looks like a jellyfish that splattered down from outer space.
There have been reports for over a century of people finding what the Germans call sternenrotz (which literally means "star snot") in conjunction with meteors falling from the sky. It's usually clear or yellowish, smells awful and disintegrates after being handled, much like one of our erections. Despite being described thoroughly in numerous newspaper and police accounts for over 150 years, no one has ever really been able to study it in depth because the substance falls apart too quickly to allow for a sample to be obtained. Case in point: in 1950, four Philadelphia police men found a six-foot lump of star jelly outside of town. When they tried to pick it up, it dissolved into "odorless, sticky scum." No doubt they all took a shower afterward and couldn't look each other in the eye ever again. So, What do the Smart People Think is Happening?
Most scientists are more than happy to say witnesses are full of shit and leave it at that, but some at least try to explain it. The glob found by the policemen in Philadelphia was a half mile away from the Philadelphia gas works, so some assert that it was a discharge of some sort (which is simultaneously plausible and just as unlikely as space boogers). Other theories have included bird vomit, frog spawn vomited up by other animals and generally a bunch of other vomit-related ideas. The goo could also be mundane types of algae slimes that people just happen to notice around the time of a meteor fall. By far the most ball-crushingly awesome theory claims that star jelly is the remains of atmospheric beasts, mythical creatures that some claim float around in the atmosphere. Why we're not constantly scraping such creatures from the windshields of airliners is not explained. #5.
Blue Jets and Red Sprites
While they may sound like two squads of a gay relay team, blue jets and red sprites are actually the names of what occurs above the clouds during a lightning storm. Only visible from space or from an airplane (or from a space airplane), these things look like the exhaust ports on a Megazord and we are totally putting them on our Christmas list. Sprites and jets are always associated with lightning storms. Sprites are red most of the time and happen as high as 50 miles off the surface of the ground, while jets shoot directly out of the tops of storm clouds, sometimes traveling as far as 30 miles up into the Ionosphere.
So, What Do the Smart People Think is Happening? Top minds are pretty sure the phenomena has something to do with whatever is causing the lightning we see in every storm, but beyond that, they don't seem to know. They know the sprites kick off as a result of a lightning strike on the ground, but the jets seem to fire whenever they goddamn please.
Jets also sometimes come in the form of the imaginatively named gigantic jets, which can shoot up as high as 43 miles above the cloud cover and look like something you uppercut your opponent into after a spirited game of Mortal Kombat. For now, science is content to shrug its shoulders and see what else is on The Discovery Channel. #4.
Earthquake Lights
As far back as 373 BC people have claimed to see weird lights in the sky during earthquakes, and sometimes for minutes before the shaking actually starts, as seen in this video: They seem to occur in China quite often, probably because the government only permits people to see a rainbow if they are moments from cataclysmic natural destruction. The lights were also witnessed during the recent earthquakes in Peru.
So, What Do the Smart People Think is Happening? There are a number of theories surrounding earthquake lights, but unfortunately none of them are very conclusive. One suggests that the imminent earthquake releases gases that are electrically charged in the air, while another says that the tectonic stress fucks with the magnetic field of the earth and creates an aurora. Yet another claims that the ground beneath contains a lot of quartz, which sparks up like Blanka from Street Fighter 2 when shaken by a tremor. Not one of these theories has a shred of evidence to back it up, though, so really we would accept any theory as long as we can tie it to some kind of fighting game reference.
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The obvious answer to all of these is HAARP
In some cases of purported Spontaneous Human Combustion, the flammables are smoldering for a considerable time before they burst into flame. The fat helps maintain the smoldering, until enough air gets to the body so that the poor sod flames like the Human Torch. The victims have usually been on some sort of medication (or passed out drunk), so they don't wake up.
The 'alcohol saturation' idea was more early 20th Century, and favored by anti-alcohol activists. Y'know, because getting drunk enough to pass out and fall on your pipe or too close to a sparking fireplace isn't BAD enough to include in the literature.
Regardless of the cause of the Naga fireballs, I can't help liking the woman (or child, even better) who yells out "Whoooaaaaah" whenever one appears.
On a related note, all the b***hes call me "Naga Fireballs". True story.
trollolol
Star Beasts. Cool. Wonder if you can ride them?
At "fear milk", I lol'ed.
Yo man, I don't know why, but I almost crapped my pants when I saw those earthquake rainbows. But I laughed out loud when I read that the chinese government only allows people to see rainbows before they are about to be destroyed by a natural cataclysm.
Excellent article. There were points where I had to hold my breath so I didn't laugh (I'm supposed to be working right now). I think the hardest containment of laughter was either the end of the animals one (the Jason Voorhees part) or any fighting game reference.
H. P. Lovecraft wrote about the star jelly phenomenon in a story called "The Colour Out of Space." FYI: things didn't end well.
aw, I was hoping the Marfa lights would be on here
Spontaneous Human Combustion is an urban legend and a bad one at that. Shame on you Cracked writer for failing the most basic litmus test of scientific skepticism.
The human is 70% water. It doesn't not just "spontaneously combust" without some kind of accelerant, such as gasoline. The vast majority of the supposed cases of SHC had no eyewitnesses and were almost always elderly people living alone. Common sense would inform us that these victims of "spontaneous human combustion" were probably people who were murdered and then immolated by the perpetrators to hide the evidence. Of course, to paranormal investigators and occultists, anything even remotely resembling scientific plausibility gets hand-waved away in favor of the implausible pseudo-scientific explanation.
Follow the law of Occam's razor here: when one finds a body that has been burnt from the waist down, does one assume that this was the result of an accident/murder or does one make the specious claim that there's so
dude chill out, its a comedy magizine, sheesh
No, he's right. I clearly need to hang up my lab coat and stop with all of the cancer research they have me doing, since I have failed at not living up to the standards of one out of over a million people who read this.
MY HAND IS ON FIRE!!!
You seem to forget the fact that in pretty much every SHC event, most of the things and belongings are perfectly fine, or maybe just slightly singed. I'm not an occultist or a paranormal investigator, just someone with an open mind.
... Then again, I'm wasting my time replying to a troll.
They actually have stories from survivors of SHC, stating that they felt no pain, and saw no flames. Weird.
http://www.crystalinks.com/shc.html
I was once told that earthquake lights were caused by certain minerals being agitated. The same minerals you find in wintergreen flavour lifesavers. In case you don't know, if you crunch them in a dark room while looking in a mirror, you'll see green sparks in your mouth.
As a general rule I do not drink cow's milk, but I'm pretty sure I would make an exception for 'Fear Milk'.
Don't. It's fear milk, it has s**t in it.
You got me snorkel. I missed the obvious "research" part of the article due to the overwhelming number of resources that said "WTF" and just ignored all of the ones that had the real explanations.
When people say "Science can't explain it", that means they did not know how to look it up, or were too lazy to try. Items 1, 2, 3, and 6 have explanations for those occurrences that have been studied. Many other occurrences were never studied (or were apocryphal), so the proper terms would be "science didn't bother". Item 5 is well known and has been studied quite a lot, especially from satellites. Item 4 is simply a form of noctilucent cloud, and has nothing to do with earthquakes. People see something they haven't seen before, and attribute it to whatever memorable thing happened lately. Number 7 would also be fairly easy to replicate if someone would only take a sample of one of them. I would bet a mixture of silane and methane would do that if allowed to bubble up from the bottom of a river. It would make a self-igniting (pyrophoric) smoke ring that would stay intact until it burned out.
#4. Earthquake Lights
There is an easy explanation to that. Ever heard of the Northern & Southern Lights? Know what causes them? Well let's have a quick lesson on them ^_^
The lights seen around the north and south poles are as a result of solar winds, high speed radiation particles fired from the sun. When these particles reach the other planets in the solar system, they wiped away the atmosphere, but earth is kinda special because we have a liquid iron core which creates a magnetic field around earth*. This magnetic field deflects a percentage of the radiation, and as the magnetic field is strongest at the north and south poles, the radiation is fired through our atmosphere (O3) creating the Northern and Southern lights/Aurora.
These are what can be seen in the aftermath of earthquakes and I'd hazard a guess at large volcanic eruptions too. And now for why, earthquakes are the moving of tectonic plates (the earths crust) over the liquid mantel within the earth. Tension builds u
But why are the earthquake lights rainbows?
You're partially right on the whole aurora thing. First of all though, solar wind didn't 'wipe away' the atmosphere of other planets. In fact, the only planet without a suitable atmosphere is Mercury. Also, Jupiter AND Saturn both have periodical aurora since they, too, have a magnetic field (though they are created from a different source). They have also been observed both on Venus and Mars, though usually caused by some other means.
Also, auroral lights are by no means static. They constantly change and move, quite dramatically even. These earthquake lights are very static, and seem to move like clouds. They also look relatively low to the ground, and auroras tend to be high up in the ionosphere.
So Ned, EVERY case of SHC has involved a smoker or an ex-smoker? Really? Where is your source for this amazing, empiricly proveable information?
One issue with the SHC. The Cigarette theory is the most accepted theory for 2 good reasons. The Cigarette could land on something else that could start burning and heat up to 570 degrees and start the Wick Effect. Yes, I know, that means they have to have fallen asleep while smoking with kindling on them! OMG! You mean like paper?! That is highly unlikely! Well, SHC is a very rare phenomenon. Also, every case of SHC has involved a person who was a smoker or ex-smoker in a relaxing situation, ie, sitting in a chair or laying in a bed. But, wait? ex-smoker? They don't smoke anymore? Did God lite them a flame to make up for the cancer they hadn't received yet? They obviously didn't smoke anymore. Well, ever have an addiction. I have had a few, granted none of them drinking of smoking, but strip clubs get addictive, boobies are always addictive... And I kicked that habit, but every once in a while I want to go to a strip club and talk to a half naked girl while she is
I swear this site is a goldmine for good band names.
Mattress: "Funny? Check ("So what do the smart people think is happening" lol)
Good pictures? Check
Right length? Check
Initially sarcastic but ultimately insightful / educational message? Check
Cracked Win!
Bonus points for correct spelling throughout.
Points off for lack of boobs / hot chicks.
That is all."
Nearly all perfect spelling; "but the truth is to this very day there are natural phenomena that our scientists still don't being to understand." begin*
Loved the article though. :)