Wierd Phenomena

[FSM with Cheddar]

Maybe it was. In fact it was the one wierd experience that really made me a skeptic. I have never believed the little green men theories, although ball lightning intrigues me. Unfortunately it's one of those mysteries that seems to attract a lot of loonies, so a really good scientific explanation of the phenomenon and a good description of how it looks might help me to clarify what I think I saw.

Equally, if it's just a faulty memory, I find it interesting to know why the brain would act that way; what evolutionary purpose is served by a memory that isn't real?

I saw an interesting horizon program (probably 10 years ago or more) on ball lightning. They tried to replicate it, and managed to do it for a split second (I think).

Here is a link to the sort of think that few over cheddar: Linky.

Faulty memory is very interesting. I recently read "A mind of its own", which has quite a lot on false memories. It generally boils down to:
The deluded brain: It can't take in all the information, so it has to make a lot of it up. - We think we are seeing reality, when what we are actually seeing is our brains best guess.

The pigheadded brain: False memories are useful in keeping us feeling important and right. If we actually realised that we are not important and that our view is probably wrong, then suicide may become more desirable.

[BrowneIssue]

On boxing day last year, a Chinese lantern flew over cheddar. It was orange, and was glowing from the candle inside it.

It looked really great on an ice cold day silently floating over the house.

Thank you. I saw scores of glowing orange things in groups of three, floating over Bognor Regis at Xmas in the night.

That matches what I saw very nicely.

(Sorry, I didn't phone the police, the RAF or the papers. I didn't panic, claim to have been abducted by aliens or a reincarnation of a South American space-faring Indian. I just thought "Interesting. How did they do that? And is it dangerous to light aircraft or likely to cause fires downwind like Luftwaffe incendiary bombs?". Am I normal?)

[Pogle]

No, Warton build aircraft, weird and wonderful ones but not missiles.

I've worked at Warton, they don't build the missiles, but the aircraft do carry them.