Bright Flashes of Light

[Dante]

So, I was up last night at about 3:30 AM arizona time after a long nights worth of homework and studying for a test and on the way home, I saw something odd. The entire horizon lit up with a bright flash of light as though lightening had struck far away.

Odd thing is, there wasn't a cloud in the sky as I could make out the stars REALLY well, and there wasn't much weather to my knowledge around Flagstaff either. I thought it was my imagination but saw it happen about 3-4 more times after that. I remember seeing these in the past at night and I was wondering if anyone else here knows what these flashes might be?

They cover about 1/4 of the horizon and they are very fast in terms of occuring. They literally light up a clear sky with white light in that segment of the sky. Personally, I'm stumped as to what it could be, so I'm wondering what my fellow CAAers have to say as far as plausible explanations.

[Roy Mustang]

Oh crap! They are coming back to get us!

It could have been a satellite flare (sometimes called an "iridium flare"). This is caused by shiny reflective surfaces (such as antennas or solar panels) on satellites in orbit reflecting sunlight directly onto the Earth and appearing as a brief, bright "flash".

Or it could have been a meteor, but I haven't heard of any meteor showers happen in the US at this time of the year. So I think it was an Iridium flare that you saw.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[Tsukuyomi]

Hmmm, I'm finding lots of stories like this that involves aliens or electricity transformers blowing out one after another :-? Even then, they say the source came from the sky :-?

I like Roy's explanation, but it's still cool to see 8D I've never seen anything like that, but that would be so cool, but it would also scare the crap out of me at the same time XDD

Lol, these stories are kind fun to read o__o;;

[ChristianKitsune]

Heat lightning?

[Peanut]

The men in these suits want me to tell you, Pascal, that it was merely a weather balloon and nothing else.

In all seriousness, that's pretty freaky. Roy's explanation seems to make sense though...oh and if you get abducted by Aliens, be sure to ask them lots of questions like "What is the significance of the number 42?" or "Why haven't you contacted us directly?" and let's not forget "WHY ARE YOU ABDUCTING ME YOU SICK ALIEN PEOPLE!!!!!!!!"

[KhakiBlueSocks]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]Hmm...do you have any chemical plants in the area? I know sometimes, if there's some low lying fog, the glow of the Exxon chemical plant (Which is about a mile or two away from my house) can cause the entire sky to glow. Also, whenever the refinery is doing a particularly strong burn off, the stacks can flare up causing a bright glow.[/color][/SIZE][/font]

[Arya Raiin]

Wow, you saw that Pascal? Sorry for the confusion, something went wrong during one of my experiments and...

Yea, not really but...

I live on the other side of the U.S.A from you, Pascal, but I saw something. The whole sky lit up, and then this deep, but not really loud, boom. It sounded like an atomic bomb and I freaked out, but then the sky went dark again. I wish I knew what it was!

[mechana2015]

I vote for heat lightning.

[Dante]

Hmm... there seems to be a lot of good explanations out there, but the one that I'm thinking is most probable is... HEAT LIGHTNING!

I can't imagine it being an irridium flare as this literally lit up a quarter of the sky it wasn't a bright small glint but a massive bright flash along the whole horizon.

Gas from an Exxon Plant might be another explanation, but I don't know any major facilities located in north-eastern Arizona.

I did do some further research however and found this (which is just plain odd)
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Precipitation/Daily.aspx?location=USAZ0178&enlarge=true

Apparently it DID rain in Arizona last night... but it was clear as day in Flagstaff! The storm was also in the direction I saw the flashes too, so that implies they must have been pretty bright.

So how far away would that heat lightning have to be? Well, I broke out Google Earth to give me the details.

80-120 miles! The time taken for the light to reach flagstaff was roughly 1/2 a millisecond (You could practically measure the time on a stopwatch! I literally looked back in time 1/2 a millisecond!). That is really at the upper bounds of heat lightning too, it should only occur at about 35-40 miles do to terrain modifications. But let's face it, this seems like the best explanation right here!

That's almost COOLER the space aliens!

[Peanut]

That's almost COOLER the space aliens!

...almost...