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Tornadoes and Ball Lightning


Edward Lewis
P. O. Box 13050
Chicago, Illinois 60613

September 7, 1995

[Received via email to INE, June 1996]


Tornadoes and Ball Lightning

Copyright 1995, 1996 by Edward Lewis

Abstract

Tornadoes and ball lightning are identified, and described as plasmoid phenomena. Certain anomalous characteristics of tornadoes and ball lightning are described and shown to be similar to the behavior of the plasmoid phenomena produced by electrolysis and discharge apparatus; in part, as evidenced by certain kinds of micrometer sized traces in nuclear emulsions and marks in materials.

I suspect that all phenomena is plasmoid phenomena, and that galaxies, atoms, and particles are plasmoids. Plasmoids seem to be basically an electrical-magnetic phenomena. In other articles(1,2), I've described plasmoids and plasmoid behavior extensively, and shown that plasmoids are responsible for the excess energy and transmutation effects observed in various kinds of "cold fusion" apparatus. In order to understand plasmoids and plasmoids effects, such as the micrometer size traces(3) Matsumoto has produced by the types of electrolysis and discharge apparatus(4,5,6) that researchers have most commonly been using, it is important to know about reported ball lightning and tornado behavior. In early 1993, I began to read extensively about anomalous reports of luminous tornadoes. There are many reports of this phenomena, including reports of people who have been inside tornadoes or seen into them from underneath. Those who have seen them from the inside or underneath report bright clouds, or light, or that the funnel was bright inside from much continuous lightning which "zigzagged" from side to side inside(7,8). According to Dessens(9) who catalogued tornadoes in France, about one-half of the tornadoes that he catalogued were either "furrowed by lightning, or the bottom of the tornado "vomits" balls of fire, or in short the tornado is luminescent at one place or another."

Atmospheric Plasmoid Phenomena

A weather observer for the U. S. Weather Service named F. Montgomery(10) reported a tornado that passed by in the evening at 9:27 P.M. that had a deep blue section that was near the top near the cloud layer and that was "very much brighter" than an arc welder and too bright for him to look at, though the tornado was 9 blocks or 3600 feet away from him. I suspect that the bright section may have been toroid shaped. He reported that the air from the tornado felt hot and that the temperature as recorded by a thermometer at his instrument shelter rose from 74 degrees Fahrenheit to 80 degrees Fahrenheit when the storm struck. This is evidence of a spectacular rate of radiation. And he reported:

There were rapidly rotating clouds passing in front of the top of the funnel. These clouds were illuminated only by the luminous band of light. The light would grow dim when these clouds were in front, and then it would grow bright again as I could see between the clouds. As near as I can explain, I would say that the light was the same color as an electric arc welder but very much brighter. The light was so intense that I had to look away when there were no clouds in front. The light and the clouds seemed to be turning to the right like a beacon in a lighthouse(11).

According to a drawing of this tornado in an article by Vonnegut and Weyer, the tornado was conic shaped, pointed downwards, and the bright section of the tornado was 100 feet thick, about 800 feet above the ground, and about 400 feet wide(12). Montgomery also reported that a few minutes after the storm passed there was a taste and smell in the air like that of burnt sulphur, and that the air was clammy, and that it was hard to breathe. A person named Lee Hunter saw this same tornado a little later, four miles north of Blackwell, Oklahoma. He reported:

The funnel from the cloud to the ground was lit up. It was a steady, deep blue light -- very bright. It had an orange color fire in the center from the cloud to the ground. As it came along my field, it took a swath about 100 yards wide. As it swung from left to right, it looked like a giant neon tube in the air, or a flagman at a railroad crossing. As it swung along the ground level, the orange fire or electricity would gush out from the bottom of the funnel, and the updraft would take it up in the air causing a terrific light -- and it was gone! As it swung to the other side, the orange fire would flare up and do the same(11).

So it seems that the entire funnel became luminescent; and that the deep blue band of light that Montgomery saw was not intrinsically different than the rest of the funnel.

This particular tornado developed from a thundercloud that had a large blinking circular pale blue spot that H. Jones(13) saw about one hour earlier, and that emitted electromagnetic radiation that Jones recorded using sferics storm tracking equipment in his laboratory. This phenomena was also tracked on radar. I suspect that the pale blue spot was a large ball lightning that was inside the cloud, and that it may have been blinking due to clouds rotating inside just as Montgomery reported, and that it was pale blue because it was seen through a cloud instead of directly as F. Montgomery saw it. H. Jones reported that the pale blue spot was continually blinking on for two seconds and then off for two seconds. I've seen movies that showed turning lighthouse lights, and they would seem to be often light for two seconds and dark for two seconds, so Montgomery's statement about the rate of turning like that of a beacon lamp on a lighthouse may match Jones' statement about the blinking. Jones also reported that during the tornado, there were lightning strikes occurring at a rate ranging from 2 to 25 per second(14), which is very much higher than the rate of stikes in thunderstorms.

Jones also reported seeing and tracking other blue lights in clouds that he called "tornado pulse generators" at other times, and he wrote that they are not visible during the daylight hours. He wrote that the "pulse generator" may develop and remain active without subsequent tornado development. Reports of tornadoes like these seem similar to reports of large bright toroidal ball lightning-like objects tens of meters across that were associated with air or water vorticity like tornadoes.

Vonnegut and Ryan even photographed two luminous tornadoes(12). And the original negative of this photograph was analyzed by two people(15) using equipment called an isodensitracer. They did a densitometric study and concluded that "the luminous pillars constitute a genuine exposure and are not an artifact of either exposure or development." In fact, they pointed out certain features that seem to me to be features of luminous tornadoes. Even if tornadoes are not glowing, this may be because they are shielded by clouds or debris, or maybe the tornado is radiating at frequencies that people can't see. Perhaps the sides of many or most tornadoes are opaque or not very translucent. Since in the U.S. most luminous tornado experiences happen at night though night-time tornadoes in the U.S. are relatively uncommon, perhaps the luminosity is more noticeable at night. Many of the pictures of tornadoes that I've seen show that the tornadoes are white even though the sky is overcast and dark. This may be evidence of luminosity that people have never noticed before. R. Jackson, another person(16) who was inside a tornado, reported that it "became light" inside, and a "white column."

I've written in other articles(17) that tornadoes and ball lightning seem to be the same phenomena, though the size varies. People have seen intermediate forms, and the conversion of large ball lightning-like phenomena to tornadoes, and the emission of many ball lightning by tornadoes. There are many reports that luminous ball lightning break away from the bottom rims of tornadoes or that they are seen to emerge from the bottom. This phenomena is similar to the phenomena of small tornadoes forming and breaking away from the bottom of tornadoes. As one person(7) reported, "Around the lower rim of the great vortex small tornadoes were constantly forming and breaking away. These looked like tails as they writhed their way around the end of the funnel. It was these that made the hissing noise." Ball lightning is also often associated with a hissing or roaring noise.

People have seen small dust devils or whirlwinds that were luminescent, and very large luminescent toroidal ball lightning that were like tornadoes. For example, as reported in the Monthly Weather Review, in Americus, Georgia on July 18, 1881 at some distance from the town:

...a small whirlwind, about 5 feet in diameter and sometimes 100 feet high, formed over a corn-field where it tore up the stalks by the roots and carried them with sand and other loose materials high into the air. The body of the whirling mass was of vaporous formation and perfectly black, the center apparently illuminated by fire and emitting a strange "sulphurous vapor" that could be distinguished a distance of about 300 yards, burning and sickening all who approached close enough to breathe it. Occasionally the cloud would divide into three minor ones, when the whole mass would shoot upwards into the heavens(18).

This whirlwind divided into smaller whirlwinds and rejoined. This is similar to the reported behavior of many ball lightning phenomena, and also similar to the behavior of tornado phenomena. About this particular whirlwind W. Corliss wrote: "almost a meteor/tornado/ball lightning hybrid(19)."

For an example of a very large luminescent toroidal ball lightning that was like a tornado, the Silverton, Texas tornado of May 15, 1957 during which 20 people died was observed by a resident of the town who reported a round light in the form of a ring that was about 40 or 50 feet above the ground and 40 or 50 feet in diameter(20). He said that the lightning came up from the ground and corkscrewed around to join the ring and went up into the cloud. Intermediate phenomena are evidence of identity of phenomena which people have thought were disparate. And the interconversion of phenomena is proof of the identity of phenomena.

Both tornadoes and ball lightning(21) are associated with anomalously high energy output. Both have been reported to scorch the ground or vegetation. F. Montgomery reported that vegetation along the path of the Blackwell tornado was wilted or looked burned and that the tornado "dried the ground." Both ball lightning and tornadoes are associated with considerable electricity. Some ball lightning constantly discharge electricity, and by measuring the change of the earth electric and magnetic field in the vicinity of a tornado, some tornado researchers(22) have estimated that tornadoes are associated with a steady current of hundreds of Amperes for minutes at a time. This would be hundreds of times more than the electrical output of a thunderstorm. This high output of electricity and light radiation suggests energy production. Electrical discharges from tiny plasmoids are also shown by the micrometer sized plasmoid marks produced by Matsumoto, and Nardi and Bostick(23).

Tornadoes and other plasmoid cylinders may be structured as rings stacked together. There is evidence that at least some tornadoes are structured in this way. The Blackwell-Udall tornado that was reported by Montgomery and Lee Hunter seems to have had a sectional structure. A trained weather observer named R. Hall(24) was inside a tornado in Texas in 1948. In addition to reporting a large brilliant cloud which shimmered like a fluorescent light that partly filled the middle of the funnel and that did not touch the seemingly opaque sides, and no vacuum, he wrote:

It looked as if the whole column were composed of rings or layers, and when a higher ring moved on toward the southeast, the ring immediately below slipped over to get back under it. This rippling motion continued on down toward the lower tip.

It is quite rare that people have been inside tornadoes and survived. It is rarer still that people would be observant inside a tornado, and even rarer that an experienced weather observer would be so observant. It is quite rare still that a person's report of experiences inside a tornado would be published as widely as this was. So experiences like these should be greatly pondered by those wishing to understand this phenomena.

Other anomalous phenomena, such as people reporting being lifted up by tornadoes without any wind or a car being lifted up and carried by an egg-shaped BL phenomena only a few meters in diameter, directly contradict the fundamental hypotheses of prior theories, such as space-time and mass, and thus evidence fundamental hypotheses. For example, a person named Dr. Pettier saw fir trees being plucked up, and then "he felt a kind of pressure from above; he noticed an unusual smell of ozone; then he felt himself raised up, and this not by the wind, for it was calm, but as though by some invisible force." Also, "on many trees the foliage was scorched(25)." This particular tornado was also associated with ball lightning and round holes with sharp edges that were left in window panes, like the photographs and SEM pictures of pits and tunnels in materials that Matsumoto has shown in his articles. The learning of these phenomena is important.

Identification with Plasmoid Phenomena Produced in Apparatus

In many articles about cold fusion produced by electrolysis and discharge that Matsumoto has published in Fusion Technology within the past three and a half years, Matsumoto has shown many kinds of anomalous micrometer size traces that are all plasmoid traces that I've described in other articles. As I've described in other articles, plasmoids such as ball lightning and tornadoes may move along a surface such as the ground and leave trails, holes, or furrows. The plasmoids K. Shoulders produced did so, and Matsumoto has shown pictures of interesting micrometer size trail marks that meander and even backtrack(26) on nuclear emulsions in his articles. Tornadoes are often reported to leave furrows in the ground a few inches or several feet deep that may sometimes be more than a mile long(7).

Matsumoto has accepted my tiny ball lightning idea, and in several recent manuscripts concerning ball lightning phenomena produced by discharge apparatus, he has shown ring traces of the same size combined together in one place (Fig. 5)(27) that are due to a toroidal or cylindrical plasmoid repeatedly hopping up and down on one spot of an emulsion, just as tornadoes and ball lightning are sometimes reported to hop up and down on the ground, and this is very substantial evidence that the ring traces are due to plasmoids that are like ball lightning. Some of the trail marks he has shown in various articles are obviously due to the moving of a ring plasmoid or a cylindrical plasmoid on a surface (Figs. 5f and 5g of Ref. 27 and Ref. 3).

It seems to me that ring plasmoids may combine to form cylindrical plasmoids, like tornadoes. Perhaps, some of the ring traces were left by plasmoids that were more tornado-like than ball lightning-like. In fact, I am beginning to wonder whether at least some of the plasmoid phenomena that people such as Ken Shoulders(28) and other EV, plasmoid, and ball lightning researchers have thought were string-like, were actually tubular, composed of stacked rings, as was the tornado that Hall experienced. In some of the photographs that Matsumoto has shown, there are string-like traces that seem to be banded as if they are traces of stacked rings. But there are other string-like marks that seem to be dots with spaces in between. Likewise, perhaps many ring plasmoids have hollow rims, though I know of no evidence of this, though many plasmoid ring marks and traces appear to be of discreet beads arranged in a circle. Ken Shoulders has researched very tiny plasmoid phenomena for years, and he calls them EVs. And he has reported that EVs may combine to form strings or rings.

Evidence for the production of elements in ring shaped, micrometer sized plasmoid phenomena has been recently reported by Matsumoto(29). Recently, Matsumoto has shown what may be the best picture of a ball lightning, or at least the best picture of micrometer sized ball lightning, unless it actually is only an effect of a ball lightning. It is ring shaped, as many ball lightning are reported to be, about 9.5 micrometers in diameter, and it is opaque and not apparently luminescent. He photographed it on a iron wire electrode by using a micro-telescope and camera equipment. Though ball lightning is usually luminous, Ken Shoulders reported that which he calls "black EVs" that don't give off visible light, and people have reported seeing black globes(30) that don't radiate light. Matsumoto reports that "nuclear transmutation" took place in the "ring zone," that he photographed. And this evidence in itself confirms my ideas about plasmoids and tiny plasmoids in apparatus. It is evident that plasmoids are the locus of transmutation and excess energy, and that substance is plasmoid phenomena.


Photo 1 is from T. Matsumoto, ARTIFICIAL BALL LIGHTNING -- PHOTOGRAPHS OF COLD FUSION, January 17, 1995, presented at the Fifth International Conference on Cold Fusion, 1995, Monaco.

PHOTO 1: Trail and hopping marks left on nuclear emulsion by toroidal or cylindrical plasmoid phenomena.

References:

1. E. Lewis, "Plasmoids and Cold Fusion," Cold Fusion Times, 2, no. 1, 4 (Summer 1994).

2. E. Lewis, "Plasmoid Phenomena," New Energy News, 2, no. 12, 9 (May 1995).

3. E. Lewis, "Some Important Kinds of Plasmoid Traces Produced by "Cold Fusion" Apparatus," Fusion Facts, 6, no. 8, 16 (February 1994).

4. T. Matsumoto, "Observation of Gravity Decays of Multiple-Neutron Nuclei During Cold Fusion," Fusion Technology, 22, 164 (Aug. 1992).

5. T. Matsumoto, "Experiments of One-Point Cold Fusion," Fusion Technology, 24, 332 (Nov. 1993).

6. T. Matsumoto, "Observation of Stars Produced During Cold Fusion," Fusion Technology, 22, 518 (December 1992).

7. A. A. Justice, "Seeing the Inside of a Tornado," Monthly Weather Review, 58, 205 (May, 1930).

8. S. Flora, "The Nature of Tornadoes," Weatherwise, 2, no. 2, 27 (April, 1949).

9. J. Dessens, J. Rech. Atmos., 2, 91, 1965.

10. C. Moore, "Some Observations on the Tornado at Blackwell, Oklahoma 25 May 1955, Reported by Floyd C. Montgomery...," Weatherwise, 9, no. 3, 97 (June, 1956).

11. B. Vonnegut and C. B. Moore, "Electrical Activity Associated with the Blackwell-Udall Tornado," Journal of Meteorology, 14, 284 (June, 1957).

12. B. Vonnegut and J. Weyer, "Luminous Phenomena in Nocturnal Tornadoes," Science, 153, 1213 (Sept. 9, 1966).

13. H. Jones, "The Tornado Pulse Generator,"Weatherwise, 18, no. 2, 78 (April 1965).

14. H. L. Jones, Research on Tornado Identification (3rd Quart. Prog. Rep., Contract No. DA 36-039 SC 64436), Stillwater, Okla. A. and M. College, 8-35, 1955.

15. B. Thompson and R. Johnson, letter, Science, 155, 29 (January 6, 1967).

16. R. Jackson and S. Bigler, "Inside the Texas Tornado,"Weatherwise, 11, no. 3, 88 (June, 1958).

17. E. Lewis, "Luminous Tornadoes and Other Plasmoids, Cold Fusion Times, 1 (no. 4), 4 (Winter, 1994).

18. Monthly Weather Review, 9, no. 6, 19 (July, 1881).

19. W. Corliss, Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena, Arlington House, New York, 1986.

20. B. Vonnegut and C. Moore, "Giant Electrical Storms," in L. G. Smith, ed.,Recent Advances in Atmospheric Electricity, Proceedings of the Second Conference on Atmospheric Electricity, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, May 20-23, 1958.

21. G. Egely, "Physical Problems and Physical Properties of Ball Lightning," Proc. First International Symposium on Ball Lightning (Fire ball) -- The Science of Ball Lightning (Fire Ball) Tokyo, Japan, July 4-6, 1988, World Scientific Company, Singapore.

22. M. Brook, "Electric Currents Accompanying Tornado Activity," Science, 157, 1434 (Sept. 22, 1967).

23. V. Nardi, W. Bostick, J. Feugeas, and W. Prior, "Internal Structure of Electron-Beam Filaments," Physical Review A, 22, no. 5, 2211 (November, 1980).

24. R. Hall, "Inside a Texas Tornado," Weatherwise, 4, no. 3, 54 (June, 1951).

25. H. A. Hazen, "Electric Storms and Tornadoes in France on Aug. 18 and 19, 1890" Science, 17, no. 434, 304 (May 29, 1891).

26. T. Matsumoto, "Searching for Tiny Black Holes During Cold Fusion," Fusion Technology, 22, 281 (Sept. 1992).

27. T. Matsumoto, "Observation of Tiny Ball Lightning During Electrical Discharge in Water," sub. to Fusion Technology, Jan. 23, 1994.

28. K. Shoulders, "Energy Conversion Using High Charge Density," Patent Number 5,123,039.

29. T. Matsumoto, "Artificial Ball-Lightning -- Photographs of Cold Fusion," manuscript dated Jan. 17, 1995 presented at the ICCF-5, April 9-13, 1995, Monte Carlo, Monaco.

30. S. Singer, The Nature of Ball Lightning, New York, 1971.


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