jrbt
21st Oct 2003, 03:47
Survey: have you ever seen aurora below or "around" your aircraft?
Guess what - scientists say it can't possibly be there, only much higher up! So please fill out the questionnaire below and tell what you saw.
Survey conducted by John Beattie, New York - layperson with long-time interest in astronomy and science as an amateur - former VFR private pilot with approx. 100 hours of flying - email address: [email protected].
INTRODUCTION
Scientists researching the aurora borealis and australis say it only occurs in the upper atmosphere above 60-100km or higher and, because of the physics involved, cannot possibly occur at or below the cruising altitude of a jet aircraft which is approximately 10km.
But years ago, as a passenger on a commercial airline flight, I saw aurora - or at least, something that looked and behaved very much like it - below the aircraft myself.
Therefore I would like to survey pilots flying in northerly or southerly reaches, as many pilots as possible, to find out how many have also observed this at least once in their careers to date. I'd also like to survey members of the flying public who have observed this as passengers. The aim is to corroborate what I saw and call scientists' attention to the seeming fact that aurora, or some cousin of it, really can occur at and below aircraft altitudes. If the scientists can ultimately verify this to their own satisfaction, I think it could be a minor or major revelation in their field and lead to new areas of research and new progress in understanding, etc..
Evidently it's sufficiently rare that, over the years, none of the scientists themselves have ever happened to see it while flying. They have received many reports of it but maintain that it has to be something else such as aurora beyond the horizon; a mirage or optical illusion; glowing algae or plankton in the sea; and other possibilities. But if enough observers report they have seen it and describe it in detail and all corroborate each other and make themselves available to respond to questions about what they saw, the scientists may start to put real credence in its existence, and then begin efforts to confirm this and ascertain its true nature. My role in this, as a non-scientist myself, is simply leading the horse to water: getting the scientists and pilots/passengers to talk to each other about this which apparently they have never done before. I think the scientists would have been receiving reports of low-altitude aurora sightings all along if more people had realized it was something the scientists believed to be impossible.
At the end of this discussion is a questionnaire which I would ask you to fill out and submit by conventional email to [email protected]. In addition, you may post any comments you wish as part of this thread.
Help us to learn more about this glorious natural phenomenon, the aurora!
DETAILED DISCUSSION
On June 6-7, 1967 at the age of nineteen, flying from New York to London on a moonless overnight flight, I saw what certainly appeared to be aurora borealis, with shimmering curtains all monochrome whitish in color, distinctly below the aircraft. It flickered and rippled and pulsated and moved, between pauses, at gigantic speeds on the order of hundreds of kilometers per second.
It was about 1-2 hours after departure while everyone else slept. I was observing out the window using a blanket to block out the in-cabin lights. My recollection is that there were no clouds above the aircraft although there may have been some clouds below the aircraft, and also, the aircraft was over water because there were no lights at all visible on the surface. I watched for something like 20-30 minutes and ascertained definitely that the aircraft was not banking but was on horizontal cruise the entire time. I made double-triple sure that the seeming-aurora I was observing was not at or beyond the horizon - because it wasn't confined to a more-or-less one-dimensional horizontal band near the wingtip light but instead, spanned a very broad two-dimensional field of view from below the horizon to well below the aircraft, and in fact, *no part* of the display was above the aircraft at any time, and I could dimly see stars which provided steady points of reference as to where the actual sky was, and in fact, could dimly see the horizon itself.
It was the first time I had ever seen aurora or similar and I thought to myself, isn't it supposed to be way up higher than that? Also, I didn't know it moved so fast! In other words, I was not prejudging due to any prior notion about aurora or observation of it - not only its low-altitude occurrence was different from what I would have expected, but also its quick motion.
(Since then I have seen aurora of the expected high-altitude variety two times: from the ground in Iceland in 1986 and from the air on a New York to Moscow flight in 2001.)
An important point
What I saw in 1967 was remarkable not only because the aurora-like display appeared to be situated at low altitudes, but also because this was *not connected to or simultaneously accompanied by* any aurora at the usual high altitudes. I'm far from qualified to speculate on the significance of this, only to emphasize it as an important characteristic of the occurrence - important not only in itself, but also because it seems to rule out any possibility that the low-altitude display was some sort of reflection from above.
"Impossible"
For years I remembered the occasion, but only around the 1980's began to realize that what I had seen was not supposed to be. I mentioned it to some science friends of mine who said it was impossible, and, even though they were not aurora specialists, I strongly agreed with them based on what I know about physics from my boarding school days preceding college: the aurora is a plasma that can only occur in the very attenuated upper atmosphere, like the near-vacuum inside a television. But I felt my observation had been rock solid.
So, I began asking various pilots from time to time, at the end of flights such as over the Atlantic, on any occasion in your flying have you ever seen something appearing to be aurora below your aircraft.
About 30%-40%, I would say, replied yes definitely, they had seen it below, or at least at the same altitude as, the aircraft - "a perception of flying through it"; the other 60%-70% said no, in their years of flying they had never seen that.
It's a very small sample - probably 20-30 pilots I asked - and only verbal, but still gives useful corroboration, I think, helping to reassure everyone that I haven't been going on field trips to New Mexico :) . It's corroboration not only that the aurora or whatever-it-is can occur lower than an aircraft, but also that such is indeed quite rare, since some pilots have seen it but a majority have never seen it. And for that matter, in three and a half decades of looking for it every time I go on a night flight, I've never seen it a second time.
Other reports
Recently I started thinking about this again and decided to pursue the question. Looking for additional preliminary corroboration I did a cursory internet search by typing on Google "aurora below" which yielded three pertinent references, two of which were from the nineteenth century:
(1) http://www.project1947.com/shg/e1.htm
"... Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Report of a Remarkable Appearance of the Aurora Below a Cloud, 1845, NS V38 (1845). ..."
(2) http://47.1911encyclopedia.org/A/AU/AURUNCI.htm
[online original has scanner errors most of which I have been able to fix]
"20. Height. ... Much the most consistent results were those obtained [in 1882-1883] at Godthaab [Greenland] by Paulsen.... The calculated heights - all referring to the lowest border of the aurora - varied from 0.6 to 67.8km..., with the average being about 20km.... In 1885 Messrs Garde and Eherlin made similar observations...near Cape Farewell in Greenland.... Their results were very similar to Paulsen’s..., the calculated heights varying in fairly regular fashion from 1.6 to 12.9km.... If the Godthaab observations can be trusted, auroral discharges must often occur within a few miles of the earth’s surface in Arctic regions. In confirmation of this view reference may be made to a number of instances where observers - e.g. General [?]bine, Sir John Franklin, Prof. Sehim Lemström, Dr David Walker [?] Fort Kennedy in 1858-1859), Captain Parry (Fort Bowen, 1825) and others - have seen aurora below the clouds or between themselves and mountains. One or two instances of this kind have even been described in Scotland. Prof. Cleveland Abbe...has given a full historical account of the subject to which reference may be made for further details. ..."
(3) http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF2/266.html
From a column of the Alaska Science Forum dated November 22, 1978: "... Do not be misled by the sight of aurora below the wing. This aurora is probably 60 miles...above the earth's surface, but far distant from the aircraft--as Columbus proved in 1492, the world is round. Earth curvature allows one flying at 30,000 feet to see auroras more than a 1000 miles away. ..."
Concerning this last reference, evidently the writer received (inarticulate?) lay reports about below-aircraft auroras-or-relatives-thereof but did not see them himself, and felt that he *had* to dismiss them as the purported horizonal illusion. But I think they really *were* below the aircraft wing, just like the display I am convinced I saw in 1967.
(continued - see next post)
Guess what - scientists say it can't possibly be there, only much higher up! So please fill out the questionnaire below and tell what you saw.
Survey conducted by John Beattie, New York - layperson with long-time interest in astronomy and science as an amateur - former VFR private pilot with approx. 100 hours of flying - email address: [email protected].
INTRODUCTION
Scientists researching the aurora borealis and australis say it only occurs in the upper atmosphere above 60-100km or higher and, because of the physics involved, cannot possibly occur at or below the cruising altitude of a jet aircraft which is approximately 10km.
But years ago, as a passenger on a commercial airline flight, I saw aurora - or at least, something that looked and behaved very much like it - below the aircraft myself.
Therefore I would like to survey pilots flying in northerly or southerly reaches, as many pilots as possible, to find out how many have also observed this at least once in their careers to date. I'd also like to survey members of the flying public who have observed this as passengers. The aim is to corroborate what I saw and call scientists' attention to the seeming fact that aurora, or some cousin of it, really can occur at and below aircraft altitudes. If the scientists can ultimately verify this to their own satisfaction, I think it could be a minor or major revelation in their field and lead to new areas of research and new progress in understanding, etc..
Evidently it's sufficiently rare that, over the years, none of the scientists themselves have ever happened to see it while flying. They have received many reports of it but maintain that it has to be something else such as aurora beyond the horizon; a mirage or optical illusion; glowing algae or plankton in the sea; and other possibilities. But if enough observers report they have seen it and describe it in detail and all corroborate each other and make themselves available to respond to questions about what they saw, the scientists may start to put real credence in its existence, and then begin efforts to confirm this and ascertain its true nature. My role in this, as a non-scientist myself, is simply leading the horse to water: getting the scientists and pilots/passengers to talk to each other about this which apparently they have never done before. I think the scientists would have been receiving reports of low-altitude aurora sightings all along if more people had realized it was something the scientists believed to be impossible.
At the end of this discussion is a questionnaire which I would ask you to fill out and submit by conventional email to [email protected]. In addition, you may post any comments you wish as part of this thread.
Help us to learn more about this glorious natural phenomenon, the aurora!
DETAILED DISCUSSION
On June 6-7, 1967 at the age of nineteen, flying from New York to London on a moonless overnight flight, I saw what certainly appeared to be aurora borealis, with shimmering curtains all monochrome whitish in color, distinctly below the aircraft. It flickered and rippled and pulsated and moved, between pauses, at gigantic speeds on the order of hundreds of kilometers per second.
It was about 1-2 hours after departure while everyone else slept. I was observing out the window using a blanket to block out the in-cabin lights. My recollection is that there were no clouds above the aircraft although there may have been some clouds below the aircraft, and also, the aircraft was over water because there were no lights at all visible on the surface. I watched for something like 20-30 minutes and ascertained definitely that the aircraft was not banking but was on horizontal cruise the entire time. I made double-triple sure that the seeming-aurora I was observing was not at or beyond the horizon - because it wasn't confined to a more-or-less one-dimensional horizontal band near the wingtip light but instead, spanned a very broad two-dimensional field of view from below the horizon to well below the aircraft, and in fact, *no part* of the display was above the aircraft at any time, and I could dimly see stars which provided steady points of reference as to where the actual sky was, and in fact, could dimly see the horizon itself.
It was the first time I had ever seen aurora or similar and I thought to myself, isn't it supposed to be way up higher than that? Also, I didn't know it moved so fast! In other words, I was not prejudging due to any prior notion about aurora or observation of it - not only its low-altitude occurrence was different from what I would have expected, but also its quick motion.
(Since then I have seen aurora of the expected high-altitude variety two times: from the ground in Iceland in 1986 and from the air on a New York to Moscow flight in 2001.)
An important point
What I saw in 1967 was remarkable not only because the aurora-like display appeared to be situated at low altitudes, but also because this was *not connected to or simultaneously accompanied by* any aurora at the usual high altitudes. I'm far from qualified to speculate on the significance of this, only to emphasize it as an important characteristic of the occurrence - important not only in itself, but also because it seems to rule out any possibility that the low-altitude display was some sort of reflection from above.
"Impossible"
For years I remembered the occasion, but only around the 1980's began to realize that what I had seen was not supposed to be. I mentioned it to some science friends of mine who said it was impossible, and, even though they were not aurora specialists, I strongly agreed with them based on what I know about physics from my boarding school days preceding college: the aurora is a plasma that can only occur in the very attenuated upper atmosphere, like the near-vacuum inside a television. But I felt my observation had been rock solid.
So, I began asking various pilots from time to time, at the end of flights such as over the Atlantic, on any occasion in your flying have you ever seen something appearing to be aurora below your aircraft.
About 30%-40%, I would say, replied yes definitely, they had seen it below, or at least at the same altitude as, the aircraft - "a perception of flying through it"; the other 60%-70% said no, in their years of flying they had never seen that.
It's a very small sample - probably 20-30 pilots I asked - and only verbal, but still gives useful corroboration, I think, helping to reassure everyone that I haven't been going on field trips to New Mexico :) . It's corroboration not only that the aurora or whatever-it-is can occur lower than an aircraft, but also that such is indeed quite rare, since some pilots have seen it but a majority have never seen it. And for that matter, in three and a half decades of looking for it every time I go on a night flight, I've never seen it a second time.
Other reports
Recently I started thinking about this again and decided to pursue the question. Looking for additional preliminary corroboration I did a cursory internet search by typing on Google "aurora below" which yielded three pertinent references, two of which were from the nineteenth century:
(1) http://www.project1947.com/shg/e1.htm
"... Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Report of a Remarkable Appearance of the Aurora Below a Cloud, 1845, NS V38 (1845). ..."
(2) http://47.1911encyclopedia.org/A/AU/AURUNCI.htm
[online original has scanner errors most of which I have been able to fix]
"20. Height. ... Much the most consistent results were those obtained [in 1882-1883] at Godthaab [Greenland] by Paulsen.... The calculated heights - all referring to the lowest border of the aurora - varied from 0.6 to 67.8km..., with the average being about 20km.... In 1885 Messrs Garde and Eherlin made similar observations...near Cape Farewell in Greenland.... Their results were very similar to Paulsen’s..., the calculated heights varying in fairly regular fashion from 1.6 to 12.9km.... If the Godthaab observations can be trusted, auroral discharges must often occur within a few miles of the earth’s surface in Arctic regions. In confirmation of this view reference may be made to a number of instances where observers - e.g. General [?]bine, Sir John Franklin, Prof. Sehim Lemström, Dr David Walker [?] Fort Kennedy in 1858-1859), Captain Parry (Fort Bowen, 1825) and others - have seen aurora below the clouds or between themselves and mountains. One or two instances of this kind have even been described in Scotland. Prof. Cleveland Abbe...has given a full historical account of the subject to which reference may be made for further details. ..."
(3) http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF2/266.html
From a column of the Alaska Science Forum dated November 22, 1978: "... Do not be misled by the sight of aurora below the wing. This aurora is probably 60 miles...above the earth's surface, but far distant from the aircraft--as Columbus proved in 1492, the world is round. Earth curvature allows one flying at 30,000 feet to see auroras more than a 1000 miles away. ..."
Concerning this last reference, evidently the writer received (inarticulate?) lay reports about below-aircraft auroras-or-relatives-thereof but did not see them himself, and felt that he *had* to dismiss them as the purported horizonal illusion. But I think they really *were* below the aircraft wing, just like the display I am convinced I saw in 1967.
(continued - see next post)