Pink lightning narrowly misses kids!!!!

[Dan Robinson]

Yeah - I can't believe how far this misconception is going. I don't expect the media to get everything right when it comes to the science of weather, but this is so obvious it's puzzling that no one has said "hey, wait a minute'....

I've also blogged about this - but it's only a matter of time before I'll be explaining this one to everyone I know tomorrow. "Hey, did you see that video on CNN last night?"

 

[Eric Flescher]

It was shown on one of the Kansas City stations Tuesday night . If it is a hoax , those stations need to know. Please post more info if you hear about it.
meanwhile Dan did anything happen to you because of the strikes? Whe ndid that happen and circumstances? I guess you had 2 stirkes you have about 16 more to go or so to that world record holder (ranger in the forest ?) who has been struck the most times.

 

[John Bowles]

Dan was never struck - those lightning strikes were far in the distance, the parts appearing on top of him are, like this video, lens reflections - which was his point.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Here's the local story from Texas, by the way. It contains a vid cap with the ghost image isolated from the video.

Heh ... if you Google "lightning video kids rain" then my blog page actually comes up before the CNN video. lol ... I'm getting hits from around the world today on it, which is too funny.

 

[Doug Lee]

I doubt if it is just an internal lens effect, and it is definitely not lightning. It looks too ragged to me to be a lens effect. Because the photographer in his story said he felt a strong percussion, I believe linghtning struck somewhere in the opposite direction that the camera was pointing. The flash we see is the reflection off the windows of the house across the street. A combiniation of rain, lens effect, and the reflection overdriving the CCD created the flash recorded by the camera.

If lightning had struck that close, the kids and the photographer might have been deafened by the thunder.

In the pic where the guy appears to be struck by lightning in th head, that's something discussed in any basic photography book. In composing a shot, be careful how background objects line up with your subjects, or else you may show someone that looks like they have a tree or telephone pole growing out of their head!