Sparks Flying From Human Body

I don't know why it happened, but it reminds me of a previous post regarding ball lightning, when different people saw different coloured lights during electrical storms, so one could hypnotises that with potential between your self and over head wires and your umbrella, that some sort of ball lightning accured between your umbrella and your self the colour was depending on the material of the umbrella was made of?

Like I said I done know but? Regards JD.

There have been instances in England, some years ago, where a farmer had cows in a field with a supergrid pylon in the middle of it. one or more cows were electrocuted by the earth field (ground) currents flowing away from the tower legs. The cows had been facing towards or away from the tower and the potential difference between their front and rear legs was enough to 'stop them dead in their tracks' - sorry that was in poor taste. Also I lived a couple of fields away and on nights such as you describe you could see the faint high voltage corona discharge halo around the insulators and hear the buzzing and crackling. I guess the guy who asked the question was luckier than the cows - his legs were closer together!

Cattle will not "release milk" if the voltage gradient between front and back legs is too high.

If that gradient exceeds 4 Volts, no amount of "persuading" will get the cow into the milking shed.

In New Zealand, where grass can be turned into milk most efficiently, in a milking shed all metalwork, electrical motor frames, structural steel, roofing iron and steel reinforcing has to be welded, bonded together, and properly earthed.

This makes all exposed metalwork at the same potential.

We do have happy cows....

When I was a teen, my parents took the family to live on a farm for a few weeks. During this time, we had a hurricane that blew down a high voltage line and electrocuted one of the farmer's cows, even though the line never hit the cow. When the linemen came to repair the line, I asked them why they wore rubber boots and walked funny. They told me that there can be large gound gradients that can kill you if you plant your feet far apart. The cow was apparently electrocuted because its feet were too far apart. No more milk from that cow.

Hello Humble Ess,

What happened was that your metal-framed umbrella became charged by electrostatic induction.

This can happen with either AC or DC, although more common on AC.

Your umbrella frame was insulated from earth, and thus charged up to perhaps 2kiloVolts.

The actual energy level stored in that metal frame, was not high, but as the voltage built up,eventually it became high enough to discharge that static charge, through the small gap into your hand.

That lowered the charge of the umbrella frame, and the voltage built up again, until discharge voltage was reached, with further discharge.

This cycle would then be repeated, perhaps several times each second, so that the spark you saw appeared to be continuous.

Just as well you didn't raise that brolly too high, because in misty conditions, or like this chap you may well have received a painful shock, or perhaps a fatal one if the current (15 milliamp can kill) was high enough.

Kind Regards.....

I thought that was what I said...?

Hello Electroman,

"I thought that was what I said...?"

Your explanation was the "charged droplets" one, normally occurring in misty weather.

My explanation was the "Other pole of a capacitor" one, which may happen in any weather conditions, and under either AC or DC overhead lines.

Repetition of safety advice can only lead to a positive (+++) result, rather than a negative (---) one, if you forgive the pun.

Anyway, you must agree I placed a nice picture in my explanation

There is also the naturally occurring approximately 1000 Volts per vertical metre available, and this may be collected, if you have a metallic conductor array spread over a huge area, it is DC, and is usable energy, but dismantle your metallic array very quickly, before a thunderstorm......

Many years ago, a gentleman by the name of Nikola Tesla had a laboratory in New York. After an evening in a local bar, he would invite a few friends over to his lab where he proceeded to put on demonstrations of body lightning. His demonstrations are reported to have been much more impressive than yours. Pick up a biography of him (there is a good one by Margaret Cheney) and learn what others have experienced.

Yes, but did this trick impress the women? Doesn't seem to work for me! Shocking!

Hello welderman,

Thank you for your interesting Post.

Nikola Tesla was an extremely interesting inventor and person, as you say.

His "Body Lightning" was achieved with an air-cored step-up transformer, which had a spark gap in the primary circuit.

This enabled the primary current to be high frequency (= Radio Frequency), thus also the secondary voltage.

Because the high frequency voltage has a tendency to conduct mostly on the outer surface of a conductor, (The Skin Effect) there was no permanent damage to the person involved, and the actual secondary current was always limited to a safe amount, as Tesla well understood.

Many of Nikola Tesla's inventions are in use today.

There were experiments he did, which were successful in transferring power at a distance, Radio transmission/reception before Marconi, etc.

Certain of his experiments proved to Tesla that there would be probable misuse of the principles he discovered, so he discontinued that part of his work.

Tesla was murdered in his hotel room,and you can read a very surprising and enlightening article here, which explains much of recent history:

http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20070405.htm

Kind Regards....

Hello Sparkstation,

Very interesting reading. If you google "Bush family tree", you will find a virtual plethora of conspriracy theories regarding Bush/Nazi connections. I'm sure there is some truth to the yarn, but separating fact from fiction is something I don't have the ambition or talent to work on. When confronted with situations like this, I attempt to store the story in my gray matter and as time passes, I take new information and put it on the appropriate side of the equation. Perhaps when I am too old to work on real engineering problems, I will try to solve the equation.
Best regards and Merry Christmas,
welderman

Highly charged water drops fell over your umbrella and then they discharged through your body. Perhaps in the area there was contaminant in air which somehow gathered charge on water drops when they passed near high voltage cables above your head. If it was corona directly from cables up then your chance to live without good shock of life is hard to believe. You must have some kind of certificate to live longer from your God. Good luck.

Were you having the rubber gum boots made of rubber on? Then corona can make you survive. Recommend your brand of shoe to others also for safety from lightning.

Maybe a man-made variation of St. Elmos fire?

Wow! Interesting explanations....

According to some of you, I guess I would have been dead if I had spread my legs a bit wide apart I never knew there can be potential difference between our legs, that too on a common ground! I do not remember exactly what I was wearing at that time, but definitely not rubber gum boots.

I understand, the railway overhead lines carry 18 to 30 kv (nominal 25 kv) and the locomotives were running on DC at that time.

What I now wish to know is do you think it should be possible to simulate these conditions and try out the phenomenon under lab conditions, of course not on me. If in fact it is possible, may be we can have mobile human light sources, with a little more brightness. But, don't forget to include my name while patenting the idea. Am I joking seriously????

"Everything you can imagine is real." -- Pablo Picasso

In your case the potential was from "above" to "below", so, no you wouldn't have been in more danger if you'd taken bigger steps. But, back to the cows: during thunderstorms they always stand with their front and back legs closer together to avoid high potential differences due to "earth current".

Hello again Humble Ess,

"I guess I would have been dead if I had spread my legs a bit wide apart

I never knew there can be potential difference between our legs, that too on a common ground..."

That can only occur if there is a high potential travelling through the ground, in a circuit where the ground forms part of the circuit.

In that situation, the voltage across a particular part of the circuit (= the ground soil) is proportional to its resistance - a high resistance = more voltage per metre, a lower resistance = a lower voltage per Metre - refer Ohms Law.

So, in Storm conditions, when high voltage power lines are likely to have fallen to ground, it is prudent to take short paces, thus minimising the risk.

I have seen cows killed in a field, and the sheep were still OK, when a 33kV feeder broke and dropped onto the ground.

The reason is the cows leg span was greater, thus more voltage, thus current, across the cow's heart area..

In all this, remember that even a few milliamps can kill, if applied at the wrong moment.

As far as simulating your then situation in a High Voltage Laboratory, I have seen it done, dry also with man-made fog and the results are startling.

Just an aside, especially for you:

Quote, on his deathbed: "I've had the last laugh on the art world" - Pablo Picasso

Typical painting absolute rubbish, and Pablo knew that.

Another case of "The Emperor's New Clothes".

He left US$70,000,000 to the then Communist Party of Spain in his will.

Kind Regards.....

Hi dear it is noting but the ionisation of the air due to extra high voltage ,

In moist weather condition it is common problem if u notice near by of EHT cables

and the factor which saves ur life is the distance betwen u and wires,if it is little

more short,then u r not here to ask this question

U r at a threshold limit for the arc to touch the ground....

I have had a number of "electrifying" experiences in my life, but the most interesting was when I was working in a large, new corporate office building in my college days. The photocopier maintenance person had come and replaced the long bulb, and thrown the old one out. I "salvaged" it from the trash ('cause it was cool) and was carrying it down the carpeted hallway (I was winter in the Northern Hemisphere) and the bulb started to glow. It was around the time of the original release of the first Star Wars movie, so I brought my light saber around to show everyone that day!

I am used to casting static sparks at light switches and when touching people, and have "been the ground" singing into microphones on concrete floors and turning off outside water spigots, getting zapped, or feeling a tingle up my arm.

The reply from Phoenix911 brought to mind a teenaged stunt of mine that caused a highway traffic jam. Take a damp foggy night, one case of 8 foot fluorescent light tubes stuck into the soft damp ground on a hill top with high voltage transmission lines overhead near the highway and you can imagine the scene. The flourescent lamps glowed and flickered randomly. It was eerie and spooky.

Buzzy