Linda Moulton Howe Thermal Plasmas of Unknown Origin

Interview: Massimo Teodorani, Ph.D.
Astrophysicist, Naples Observatory, Bologna, Italy:

"We saw two types of targets. Most of the ones are plasma-like lights. So, nothing with structure, but just like balls of lights with no geometry or so. This is 95% of the things we saw with our own eyes.

AND THESE PLASMA BALLS COULD LAST UP TO TWO HOURS?

Yes. They could last up to two hours according to reports by Dr. Erling Strand who is the professor directing the project in Norway.

AND THAT WOULD EXCLUDE BALL LIGHTNING?

Absolutely, yes.

IT IS A VERY SHORT PHENOMENON?

Yes.

GO AHEAD AND DESCRIBE WHAT YOU'VE SEEN AND WHAT THE CHARACTERISTICS ARE THAT MAKES THIS SO AMAZING TO YOU SCIENTISTS AND WHY YOU ARE INVESTIGATING.

Yes, well, what is amazing is the fact that the phenomenon is very energetic. And so, with our measurement we want to understand what is the physical mechanism with which this energy is emitted. This is the scope of our investigation. What we have seen is that the phenomena is very complex. It is not simple light balls, but when we process the data we see that many small light balls vibrate around a common barycenter. So it is something like a center force that is ejecting balls or the mini-balls are going around the center body. It is quite complicated. And we also saw during the processing phase that these plasmas are able to assume several shapes. Sometimes, also geometric.

ALSO GEOMETRIC SHAPES?

Yes. Sometimes also geometric. We don't know yet the reason about that yet, but we saw something that was like a rectangle. It suddenly changes from an amorphous plasma to a rectangle. It happened transiently and we saw it and it is in my paper, EMBLA 2001: The Optical Mission.

SO YOU WERE WATCHING SOMETHING ROUND LIKE A SPHERE OF PLASMA AND IT SUDDENLY TRANSFORMED INTO A RECTANGLE?

Absolutely. At first we thought it was a sort of instrumental effect due to the video camera. But after we compared the photo of this same phenomenon with the video of the same phenomenon, we saw that they were the same thing. That is a plasma in spite of that geometrical shape because we can do certain analyses by studying the distribution of light. And also by taking the spectra. We see that one is a plasma. So, it is strange. A plasma phenomenon that we can describe, but not yet tell what is the main reason that is causing it.

AND IS IT FAIR TO SAY THAT NONE OF YOU OR ANY OTHER ASTROPHYSICISTS HAVE EVER DOCUMENTED THIS KIND OF PLASMA INTERACTION AND TRANSFORMATION BEFORE NOW?

No (we haven't). To me it doesn't result that other astrophysicists have found this. I know that some astrophysicists have seen the light phenomenon as amorphous light balls, but it is the first time that we saw that this year.

AND YOU HAVE CONCLUDED IN YOUR SCIENTIFIC PAPER THAT THESE ARE THERMAL PLASMAS BECAUSE WHY?

Because if I take spectrum and I plot the spectrum in a flux wavelength, that spectrum resembles typical Max Plank curve which is typical of a cocktail of ions and electrons. That speaks very clearly. And we can also measure the temperature and the temperature was in that case a little bit higher than the solar temperature; 6,500 Kelvin degrees.

SO WOULD THIS BE CONSIDERED A LOW ENERGY PLASMA OR A HIGH ENERGY PLASMA?

It is a quite high energy plasma. If you have some triggering cause that is creating the plasma, we expect that the plasma expands. This is a cooling mechanism. We expect that it expands and in that case a temperature must drop. But we saw that those lights were changing shapes suddenly from very big to very small and the phenomenon was there standing still. But the temperature was just constant because we measured the temperature in both phases. So, there must be some kind of self-heating mechanism that keeps the temperature constant. This is highly anomalous.

IT IS HIGHLY ANOMALOUS BECAUSE YOU ARE DEFINING A PLASMA THAT IS SELF-SUSTAINING TEMPERATURE IN A WAY THAT YOU HAVE NEVER IDENTIFIED BEFORE?

Yes. Absolutely yes. I don't know how it is possible that Nature is spontaneously is able to do that. Anyway, we deduce that the plasma is trapped inside a sort of magnetic cage and the magnetic cage closes around the plasma and keeps it fixed in some way, prevents it from expanding. But where does it come from? We don't know. In a way we have a measured correlation between magnetic perturbation and the apparition of lights. This is another discovery. Sometimes the lights are not lights, but invisible. In fact, Prof. Erling Strand, my friend and colleague from Norway, in 1994 got about 34 radio tracks of phenomenon that sometimes were visible, but sometimes were not visible. So, the radar was giving exactly the position and velocity, but it was not visible. So, we have a big suspicion that this kind of phenomenon can shift into low energy and so become invisible.

SO IT SHIFTS TO A LOWER FREQUENCY THAT THE RETINA OF THE HUMAN EYE CANNOT SEE . . .

A lower... yes,

AND YET ON RADAR, IT IS STILL THERE . . .

Yes.

AND THAT IS SO CONSISTENT WITH AT LEAST TWELVE YEARS OF EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS IN ENGLAND, MYSELF INCLUDED, IN WHICH THROUGH AN INFRARED SCOPE I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SEE WHAT LOOKED LIKE AN OVAL OF LIGHT CHANGE INTO A SQUARE OF LIGHT THAT WAS PULSING. I SAW THIS ALONG WITH OTHER PEOPLE AND WE COULD ONLY SEE THIS IN THE INFRARED SCOPE. WE COULD NOT SEE IT WITH OUR EYES.

This is very interesting. We also used the infrared detector, but we havenÕt pointed it at the lights themselves. But how were you able to point if you were not able to see?

WE DISCOVERED IT TOTALLY BY A FLUKE. I HAD THIS INSTRUMENT AND SOMEBODY YELLED THAT THEY THOUGHT THEY SAW A FLASH OF RED WHICH WE ALL SEEMED TO SEE AT THE SAME TIME. THAT WAS THE ONLY THING. AND JUST AS YOU CAN LIFT UP SOMETHING IN A DIRECTION, I LIFTED THE SCOPE AND SAW THIS OVAL THAT HAD A PULSING TO IT VERY BRIGHT IN THE INFRARED SCOPE. WE PASSED IT AROUND AND NO ONE COULD SEE ANYTHING IN THE DARK WITH OUR EYES, BUT THROUGH THE INFRARED, HERE WAS THIS PULSING OVAL THAT SHOCKED ALL OF US WHEN IT TRANSFORMED IMMEDIATELY INTO THIS SQUARE OF PULSING LIGHT SIMILAR TO WHAT YOU HAVE DESCRIBED.

Absolutely. Very interesting. Next year we are also going to use a more sophisticated infrared detector. This is very interesting because we are going to use sensors to track the phenomenon with infrared, optical, radar and so on, so we can track them everywhere. But we need some money for that yet.

AND IT IS SUCH IMPORTANT WORK. I HAVE BECOME CONVINCED AS AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER THAT A LOT IS HAPPENING OUTSIDE OF THE RANGE OF THE HUMAN RETINA.

Yes, for sure. And I didn't tell you the other thing besides those plasmas which were 95% of the events. But we saw also in two or three cases compact (solid) objects. One appeared suddenly when we were taking a photograph of each other on top of a mountain. It was a remembering photo and when the flash was activated, the object appeared. But it was not a plasma object because I analyzed it. It was just a polished surface, very clear. It is present in my paper and last year, we had one very small sphere. I could measure it. It was about 40 centimeters, sort of a probe. It arrived over our head. There were about three (of us who saw it) at night. It stopped 90 meters far from us near the trees and there it floated standing still for a long time, about 15 minutes. I took a photograph of that and by analyzing the frame, I could see that it was a solid. It was like alabaster (glowing) and I was able to follow it with my binoculars very well.

AND WHEN YOU ARE DESCRIBING THE SURFACE, YOU SAW ONE THAT HAD A SMOOTH, SHINY SURFACE. THIS ONE WAS, DID YOU SAY, LIKE ALABASTER GLOWING FROM THE INSIDE OUT?

Yes. Yes. In that case, it was a sort of low luminosity, like a 100 watt bulb. Not more. So we don't know why in this valley there most are plasmas. In other cases, there are other things. So there is an overlap of the two phenomenon and we don't know if this overlap is by something different or by behavior of the same phenomenon. We don't know yet. Last year we also saw a triangle in the sky. A TRIANGLE? Yes, you can get information on this by reading my EMBLA 2000 report indicated in the bibliographic reference of the last EMBLA 2001 study. Last year we saw the triangle, but we couldn't document it because that day we didn't have a videocamera with us. It was impossible to follow it with a normal reflex camera. But it was just a triangle with three lights on the vertices. The lights were fixed, not blinking, and it was coming from north towards us and it did stop exactly over us. There were five of us and when it was over us it started to make a rotation around its axis while it was standing still. And after some seconds, about 15 seconds, the lights faded very gradually and the triangle disappeared over our heads. This is a story, but unfortunately we couldn't document or take measurements. But it happened.

AND THIS IS THIS PAST SUMMER OF 2001 AND THOSE TRIANGLES WITH THE LIGHTS AT THE THREE VERTICES HAVE BEEN REPORTED IN BELGIUM AND ENGLAND.

I know, yes.

HOW BIG WOULD YOU ESTIMATE AS A SCIENTIST LOOKING UP? COULD YOU ESTIMATE ANYTHING ABOUT THE SIZE?

It was practically impossible to understand. It was very big and I can only say that the size was about 10 times the moon. Probably more. I could see with my binocular that there was a dark surface very well. But differently from the Belgium cases. There was no blinking center light. There were only three lights fixed and then afterward fading gradually and disappearing. I tell you that my friend is director of a radio astronomical station. He is a radio astronomer and I am an astrophysicist. There were two professors there who are engineers and another professor. And it was in fact incredible!

SO YOU HAVE FIVE SCIENTISTS WHO ARE ALL WORKING IN UNIVERSITIES OUT TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THESE PLASMA SPHERES IN THE HESSDALEN VALLEY ARE AND THIS OBJECT OF TRIANGLE LIGHTS, YOU ALL SEE IT, AND IT STOPS RIGHT OVER YOU AS IF AWARE THAT YOU ARE THERE?

Yes, yes, yes, it is exactly so. Of course, I have to tell what happens. I am a scientist and my duty is not to select what I don't like or what is not convenient for me. We have to find out what it is. But we cannot document with data this. We were just witnesses because no one of us had a video camera. But we were 5 and we were all scientists. And one of them—I cannot tell you the name—felt a little bit like a sort of rocking motion.

IN HIMSELF?

Yes, and it is very well known that very low frequency can interact with the human brain.

AND YOU ALREADY HAVE DOCUMENTED THAT SOME OF THE PHENOMENON ASSOCIATED WITH THE PLASMA LIGHTS ARE LONG FREQUENCY RADIOWAVES?

Yes. but sometimes we see them and we also have cases we see only long radio waves without seeing anything. And of course, we could exclude any kind of manmade radio waves, but what remained was one sort of Doppler waves if we interpret it in the astrophysical way, it is like a fast rotating ball which is accelerating high energy particles. The velocity was 100,000 kilometers per second and of course, this can be due only to particles which are channeled along the magnetic field. This is the only interpretation that we can do. In the case of lights that don't appear in the photo, the temperature must be very low, something like 100 Kelvin or so.

AND HOW HIGH DOES IT HAVE TO GO TO BREAK INTO THE FREQUENCY THAT THE EYE CAN SEE?

I think it should reach something like 1,000 Kelvin probably, maybe 2000, the eye should be able to see. But I haven't calculated precisely.

THAT WOULD MEAN THAT YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DOCUMENT WHAT SEEMS LIKE A TEMPERATURE RANGE THAT WOULD GO FROM 100 KELVIN TO 1000 KELVIN OUT OF THE INVISIBLE RANGE TO THE VISIBLE RANGE . . .

Yes.

AND YET YOUR INSTRUMENTS KEEP SHOWING THERE IS NO TEMPERATURE CHANGE FROM THESE LIGHTS.

Yes, this is when the phenomenon is inside, the temperature remains constant. This I can document. We didn't use very much infrared detector, but in the case of the lights when they were on, they were just lighting, the temperature was established at a constant level. This is what I can say in spite of the fact that the phenomenon was changing dimension (size), but the temperature was always constant. We don't know why. We don't know the physics that is behind all this.

THEN THIS WOULD BE A HUGE PHYSICAL ANOMALY BECAUSE IN THE PHYSICS WORLD THAT WE UNDERSTAND SO FAR, FREQUENCY OF TEMPERATURE AND VIBRATION YOU WOULD THINK WOULD BECOME LOWER IF IT DISAPPEARED.

Yes, when it disappeared, the frequency becomes lower.

BUT YOU ARE SAYING THAT THE TEMPERATURE DOES NOT BECOME LOWER EVEN WHEN THESE PLASMA SPHERES DISAPPEAR?

No, the temperature was not changing at all when the plasma was always there.

BUT DID THE TEMPERATURE GO DOWN WHEN THE PLASMA SPHERE DISAPPEARED TO YOUR EYE, BUT WAS STILL THERE ON RADAR?

This is a good question. My problem is that the spectrum we took when the plasma was disappearing was too weak. So, it was impossible to process it with good signal to noise ratio. So we cannot tell this yet.

SO IT MIGHT HAVE GONE FROM 1000 DEGREES KELVIN IN THE VISIBLE RANGE SUDDENLY DOWN TO 100 DEGREES KELVIN IN THE INVISIBLE RANGE, BUT SO FAR YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO GET CONTINUAL LINEAR DATA?

No, we have not. But I can tell you anyway that the phenomenon is not turning on gradually, but it turns on in a matter of 1 second. Just like when you turn on or turn off the light. It goes away immediately. So, it's very difficult to see the shift in temperature unless we use a high speed photometer.

AND WHAT WOULD BE THE SOURCE BEHIND THESE PLASMA SPHERES THAT HAVE THE ABILITY TO TRANSFORM IN SHAPE AND STILL DON'T LOSE THEIR TEMPERATURE?

I am not able to tell this, but I can only deduce indirectly that the only way to keep a plasma self-consistent, self-contained, the only way to do that is we need a center force. We don't know yet the nature of that center force, but as an astrophysicist I can predict the existence of some kind of mini black holes. In that case, if you take a mini black hole inside the atmosphere, our atmosphere, what you have is a sort of potential well and the gas falls into the potential well. It gets very hot and remains there. If the mini black hole has angular momentum, it can make also the shape of a disc, for instance, because it is rapidly rotating. Mini black holes have been predicted by theoreticians and they could be a component of the cosmic rays. This is one way. Another way, I don't know frankly what can it be if not a gravitational singularity which suddenly occurs in our atmosphere. Of course, the theory of wormholes has been settled theoretically. But we are scientists, not engineers, and we have to imagine what can it be.

AND YOUR PAPER AND DOCUMENTATION FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS IS VERY IMPRESSIVE. WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS GOING TO TAKE TO GET OTHER ASTROPHYSICISTS AROUND THE WORLD TO PAY ATTENTION TO NOT ONLY YOUR WORK, BUT THE FACT THERE IS INCREASING EVIDENCE IN ALL DIRECTIONS THAT THERE IS SOME KIND OF A PLASMA SPHERE WITH ALL OF THESE CHARACTERISTICS ON THIS PLANET AND SCIENCE SHOULD TRY TO INVESTIGATE MORE?

Yes, you are right. In fact, the scope and goal of this work with my colleagues was to trigger, to provoke my colleagues in order to give funds and to involve many other scientists."