23857122-0457-180273-0374

OCR Text

(5) (6) “ ae a Jumping of gan by lightning indoors. (When lightning strikes a house, lightning streamers may jump gaps such as between pipes within the house, thus causing a brizcht flash of limited extent. After- image is generally formed on the retina and movements of eye produce apparent movements of the illuminated rection.) A cloud-to-ground lightning stroke with an associate, horizontally-directed, moving potential wave may possibly produce a transient horizontal potential eradient sufficiently intense to initiate slectrical discharges. (Such discharges would involve luminous darts moving at hich speed and may move over irrerpular trajectories, producing, in some cases at least, more-or-less hori- zontaliy directed, sinuous, ribbonelike or tubular paths. If there is a heavy concentration of eleotrical charres near the earth beneath the thunderstorm the > oe p+ trie verine of a discharge by the transient potential gradient may yield horizontal lishtning streamers having a relatively slow propagation rate and lor duration.) A lirhtninge discharge that strikes and runs along a conductor such as power or telephone lines and flashes- over or jumps the gaps at breaks produces a brilliant {llumination at the gaps that may be mistaken for ball lithtninc. A piece of wire with attached light object that is car- ried aloft by the gusty winds and turbulence attending a thundorstorm or tornado may serve to facilitate cone duction of lightning currents and yield streamers at its ends during disehargos. Q 4 A ei aes aoe SpUri0ESUus Cases. (a) Reflections of lightning observed on highly polishe s, such as door knobs. _(e) Fallin: molten metal (f) Lightning channel seen on end. Declassification Authority: NND 57565