OBSERVATIONS SUPPORTING THE EXISTENCE OF BURNING WHIRLWINDS

The observations cited below have never been addressed by way of a satisfactory explanation. But they are discussed in my book BALL LIGHTNING- A SCIENTIFIC MYSTERY EXPLAINED Published by Fireshine Press 294 pp ISBN 0-473-04827-2. These sorts of observations are consistent with my theory. I have mentioned the Crail whirlwind and the Dorset tornado of 1989 in my letter to Weather. The observations below fall in the same category and fit in with my theory. Ball Lightning has shown a connection with tornadoes. But these vortex burners can be any diameter not just the mature tornado. The same applies to UFOs.

The observations below clear point to the existence of the phenomenon upon which my theory has been based. The combustion effect in vortex breakdown has been also demonstrated experimentally and the work published. Such atmospheric burners in the sky do exist. There is no doubt that the phenomenon exists. Because the phenomenon has not been understood naturally the layperson might interprete these as a type of UFO.

Corliss (1982) cited a case in Symond’s Monthly Meteorological Magazine, Number 4, page 123, in Ashland, Tennessee in 1869

Corliss, W.L.,1982, Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights And Related Phenomena-A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies, The Source Book Project, PO Box 107, Glen Arm, MD 21057.

“ ... a remarkably hot day ....a sort of whirlwind came along over the neighbouring woods, taking up small branches and leaves of trees and burning them in a sort of flaming cylinder that travelled at the rate of about five miles per hour, developing size as it travelled. It passed directly over the spot where a team of horses were feeding and singed their manes and tails up to their roots; it then swept towards the house, taking a stack of hay in its course. It seemed to increase in heat as it went, and by the time it reached the house it immediately fired the shingles from end to end of the building, so that in ten minutes the whole dwelling was wrapped in flames. The tall column of travelling calorific(ie energy/fire) then continued its course over a wheat field that had been recently cradled, setting fire to all the stacks that happen to be in its course. Passing from the field, its path lay over a stretch of woods which reached the river. The green leaves on the trees were crisped to a cinder for a breadth of 20 yards, in a straight line to the Cumberland. When the “pillar of fire” reached the water, it suddenly changed its route down the river, raising a column of steam which went up to the clouds for about half-a-mile, when it finally died out. Not less than 200 people witnessed this strangest of phenomena, and all of them tell substantially the same story about it.”

Corliss included another amazing observation within his “whirlwinds of fire” category, namely the Newbottle whirlwind of November 30th, 1872 that took place at Banbury, England. This object was reported by Beesley (1873) and described as a “huge revolving ball of fire”.

“About 12 o’clock we had a heavy storm of rain and hail, in the middle of which there was a very vivid flash of lightning, with almost instantaneous thunder of a very peculiar rattling sound. About five minutes afterwards, as I was leaving the house, my gardener called me to come and see the ball of fire. I was unfortunately half a minute too late, but I have seen four persons who saw it from different points, and who all agree they heard a whizzing, roaring sound like a passing train, which attracted their attention, and then saw a huge revolving ball of fire travelling from six to ten feet off the ground. The smoke was whizzing around and rising high in the air, and a blast of wind accompanied it, carrying a cloud of branches along and destroying everything in its way.... Where it first began the breadth of ground travelled over was very narrow, but increased as it proceeded, till in the last field the debris covered a space quite 150 yards wide, and here it seems to have exhausted itself, as all witnesses agree that the ball of fire seemed to vanish at this spot without any explosion. Here the ground had been cut in places as if by a cannonball, but I could find no cause for this, and I saw no signs of fire on its route........William Marshall, gardener at Newbottle Manor, was returning from stables to the house. He heard a noise like a long railway train crossing a bridge, and saw leaves and branches whirled into the air above the Spinney, and immediately afterwards ‘a dark ball , as big as a carriage’, and sending up a ‘a cloud of smoke’ come out of the trees with a shower of branches, and roll ‘over and over’, down the hill in the direction of the bridle road; the cloud of smoke at the same time whirling ‘round and round’ with a ‘buzzing noise’. He distinctly saw sparks of a red colour emitted from the ball about six feet from the ground, and this is confirmed by another man, William Jilson, of Astrop, who, from a field on the west, saw fire and ran away affrighted.”