Weird RL Phenomena

[Mutant for Hire]

I was reading the Straight Dope and found this in one of the latest articles:

There's nothing like lightning to convince you of the fundamentally random nature of the universe. In a case reported in 2003, a man was fussing with wood in the fireplace of a Belgian farmhouse during a thunderstorm while his five-year-old daughter played at a nearby table. A glob of ball lightning--a rare, poorly understood phenomenon that behaves like a mixture of electricity and fire--emerged from the fireplace and shoved the man back three meters, burning him and knocking him unconscious. According to his wife, an eyewitness, the ball lightning then made a 90-degree turn and drifted over to the little girl, burning 30 percent of her body; glided underneath the table, through the kitchen, and into another room; and finally exited through the open back door and vanished in the garden. The scientific mind at such times does not try to think up precautionary measures. Rather it says: Yipes.

In the CU they'd chalk it up to supervillain activity or aliens...

[Just A Guy Name]

One could be excused for assuming an underlying, operative intelligence in such a case :/

[Battlestaff]

I see a new super in the making!! And will his daughter gain any powers?

[CrosshairCollie]

Of course, that 'ball lightning' was obviously a being composed of pure energy ...

[jackalope]

I saw naturally occuring ball lightening once, during a thunderstorm in SoCal, amazing stuff. I was a good thousand yards from it, so I wasn't scared, but wow - AMAZING. If I hadn't already been aware of the phenomenon, i don't know what I would have made of it.

I saw footage of some scientists who recreated ball lightening once, I forget how (this was years and years ago), but they did it. It "floated" through a kichen they'd set up, "landed" on the stove, and "rolled" across the top of it before dissapating. There was a skillet on the stove, and it cut the dang thing in half! Absolutely amazing!

[JeffreyWKramer]

I, too, have viewed ball lighting - near a power station during a thunderstorm. The balls of lightning were bouncing back and forth between, and circling, some of the station components. It glowed brightly, and moved with an odd grace. It was a truly bizarre thing to watch, and an excellent example of how reality can be stranger than fiction.

[KawangaKid]

I dunno man. I'd argue that there was some intelligence to it. Unless you argue that it was attracted to the bio-electrical fields of living creatures.

But then, I've been in a room where my (now-ex) girlfriend claimed she could sense spirits and that a belligerent one was in the room. Then a cabinet door that's wedged shut (I've tried opening it and closing myself on prior occasions) smoothly pop open as though it were oiled, WD-40'd and not badly wedged between the disproportionate edges of the cabinet itself. When I shut it, it was as tough as ever to shut it... and when I tried to open it again, it was just as tough as ever.

Freaky stuff.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I dunno man. I'd argue that there was some intelligence to it. Unless you argue that it was attracted to the bio-electrical fields of living creatures.

That's not bad as far as potential explanations go, actually, given what we know about the behavior of typical electrical phenomena.

It'd certainly be no stranger than some animal facts re: bioelectrical fields. Didy'all know that at least two very different kinds of animals - sharks and, of all things, the platypus - track prey in part via bioelectical fields?

The world is a weird place.

[WhammeWhamme]

That's not bad as far as potential explanations go, actually, given what we know about the behavior of typical electrical phenomena.

It'd certainly be no stranger than some animal facts re: bioelectrical fields. Didy'all know that at least two very different kinds of animals - sharks and, of all things, the platypus - track prey in part via bioelectical fields?

The world is a weird place.

Y'know, if 'Platypus' didn't sound so goofy, Platypus Man could be a nifty hero.
Poisonous mammal, semi-aquatic, field sensors...

Hrm. Maybe just have them be named after something Australian...

[OddHat]

Y'know, if 'Platypus' didn't sound so goofy, Platypus Man could be a nifty hero.
Poisonous mammal, semi-aquatic, field sensors...

Hrm. Maybe just have them be named after something Australian...

The platypus, a fanged, poisonous egg-laying aquatic mammal that looks like a duck and can sense bio-electric fields ...
If you were going to design an alien life form, you could do worse.

[Metaphysician]

Not fanged. Poisonous spurs on its forelegs.

Nasty poison, too. Only natural one to directly stimulate the pain nerves.

[OddHat]

Not fanged. Poisonous spurs on its forelegs.

Ah. Didn't remember that.

[Battlestaff]

The platypus, a fanged, poisonous egg-laying aquatic mammal that looks like a duck and can sense bio-electric fields ...
If you were going to design an alien life form, you could do worse.

Who says they're not aliens.....?

[Metaphysician]

Heh, the Platypus, aquatic hero possessing amphibious abilities, the proportional strength and speed of a platypus, and the dreaded Pain Touch. . .

[JeffreyWKramer]

Platypi are also something of a paleontological enigma, or at least were the last time I read up on the subject of ancient platypi. As I recall, the fossil specimens appear to be essentially unchanged from then to modern times, which is extremely unusual among mammals. I also seem to recall that there really aren't any other critters identified as belonging to their particular branch of the animal "tree", except for the echidna, which is itself an odd little beast.

There may well be newer findings in platypus paleontology and evolution of which I am unaware, though.