Abstract
THE light columns observed by Mr. Currie (NATURE, April 5, p. 526), though rather unusual phenomena, have been described previously. Once in France and twice in Italy, during the War, I noticed that gun flashes at distances of the order of 15 kilometres appeared as narrow vertical streaks of light centred about 10°–15° above the horizon. The occasion in France (Nov. 6, 1916) was a most striking one; a note giving the details was published after the War in the Quar. Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 45, pp. 366–368 (1919). About 9.30 P.M. on that evening there were visible, in addition, parts of a lunar halo of 22°, a horizontal circle or mock moon ring, and a halo of 90°. During the remainder of the evening continual gun flashes produced a weird and unnatural effect as of vertical slits opening and closing suddenly in a dark curtain with a fiery background. Later in the same evening a still more remarkable spectacle was presented in that, as a result of enemy action, a large ammunition depot, some 15 km. distant from the point where I was stationed, was set on fire. The fire (or fires) appeared also as great vertical streaks in the sky, with a dark patch at their centre, the altitude of this dark centre, measured by theodolite, being 321/2°.
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GOLDIE, A. Atmospheric Light Columns from Artificial Lights. Nature 125, 743 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/125743a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/125743a0
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