Spherical Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Scientific Observations and Physical Hypotheses, Danger Evaluation for Aviation and Future Observational Plans Massimo Teodorani, Ph.D. NARCAP Research Associate October 2009 Spherical unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), of both plasma and solid-like kinds, have been often observed in the world. Several monitoring campaigns have permitted us to know some structural properties and the time behaviour of such objects. On the basis of what has been observed so far, of the deduced constants characterizing the phenomenon, and of the consequent physical working hypotheses that resulted, possible dangers to aviation are examined from several point of view of physical science by taking into account both a natural and an artificial nature of this kind of UAP. A systematic instrumented observational plan is proposed, involving both recurrence areas and time flaps of the phenomenon itself. Introduction Sightings of anomalous light phenomena of spherical shape have been reported from several locations in the world. Most of them have been classified as earthlights (Adams, website; see Fig.1). The appearance of this kind of unidentified aerial phenomena, in general, doesnt show a solid structure or the clear evidence of a surface, but it looks more often as a very bright spherical object having a much less smoothed contour than the one shown by standard plasma. Most of these events have been documented by visual sightings; more rarely they have been videoed, more often singularly, in other cases flying in a sort of formations. Only a few of them have been monitored using scientific instrumentation. At the present time many are the videos showing on internet the alleged evidence of this kind of anomalous spherical objects, but the amount of fakes and hoaxes that are being persistently perpetrated (Teodorani, 2009b) is so severe that a scientific examination is limited only to a very few ascertained cases. The first part of this contribution will be dedicated to the description and discussion concerning observations that have been carried out using scientific methods, and which will deal mainly with spherical phenomena of the plasma kind. What do we know scientifically of this kind of aerial anomaly? In fact we must fix in simple terms what we are effectively able to document from observations where data can be effectively recorded. Some work hypotheses on the possible physics of these phenomena are ventured and reasoned but not definitively established, as this can happen only when the obtained data are in sufficient number and when they are obtained using more wavelength observational ranges than the ones that have been carried out so far and guaranteeing a better simultaneity of different measurements instruments together. The second part will deal with some reasoning through which it will be attempted to predict qualitatively a possible dangerous interaction of such spheres with aircrafts, on the basis of their observed physical behaviour. Along with this topic an ample discussion of physical theories and scenarios will be presented, trying to cover several fields of physics and its possible connections. The third part of this preliminary study will regard an observational research plan, in which new specifically aimed instrumental observations are intended to show more evidences that can furnish to us a more complete physical picture of what is seen and to prove or confute work hypotheses concerning the possible nature of spherical UAPs. Only after this will be accomplished well be in a condition to evaluate precisely the level of possible danger to aviation and/or generally to human activities. This is extremely important, because if we start too early to do calculations or evaluate an order of magnitude of the expected physical quantities, we risk to settle quantitatively an incorrect picture of the phenomenon (whose map might be very different from the true territory) and consequently to produce an unrealistic and incomplete evaluation of the threat that this phenomenon might constitute for human activities. New and many more quantitative data are now necessary, in order that we are in a condition to integrate them with the useful statistics obtained from selected witness cases. The possibility that light spheres do not appear only as plasma objects but as solid artificial ones too is also ventured throughout the entire report, both in form of hypotheses and in form of important witnessed sightings coming from some parts of the world. Figure 1. World distribution of locations (yellow squares) where anomalous light phenomena of the earthlight kind occur more often, according to witness reports (authors processing). Small brown dots represent fault areas. 1 Scientific Observations Spherical shaped light phenomena, when not diffused as dubious videos on Youtube or other channels of popular audience, have been confirmed as an existent phenomenon through some scientific studies that have been carried out at locations where this kind of phenomenon shows to be reasonably recurrent (Adams, website; Akers, website; Bunnell, website; Long, 1990; Pettigrew, 2003; Rutledge, 1981; Stephan et al., 2009; Strand, website, 1984, 1996; Straser, 2007; Teodorani, 2004a, 2004b, 2008; Warren, website). The Hessdalen valley in Norway is probably the prototype of these special locations, not just due to the many events that are reported and videoed (and sometimes occasionally measured) but because the existence of a permanent measuring station there and the occurrence of many international missions in the area, make of this location a sort of laboratory area that is very well suitable for the investigations of physical scientists in general (Strand, website). It can be now confirmed that similar reoccurring phenomena are sighted in other areas of the world too: for instance the Brown Mountain (Warren, website) and Marfa light (Bunnell, website; Stephan et al., 2009) phenomena in USA and the Min-min phenomena in Australia (Strand, 1996; Pettigrew, 2003) are quite well known and also scientifically monitored. Concerning the research carried out by this author and some of his collaborators in Hessdalen (Teodorani, 2004a, 2008), it has been possible to depict a provisional but quite precise observational scenario concerning the characteristics shown by these light spheres, the most important of which probably are the following ones: 1. They are most often of spherical in shape, of different colours, mostly white, of often long duration (up to 30-60 min, spaced out by moments of off and on phases) and quite large dimensions (1-10 meters). Their duration and dimensions are respectively much shorter and smaller than apparently similar phenomena such as ball lightning, given the empirical fact that duration and dimensions are correlated together (Stenhoff, 1999). These phenomena have been provisionally ascribed to the class of earthlights (Adams, website). Yet such phenomena, together with ball lightning, are the only anomalous aerial phenomena whose existence has been effectively confirmed by scientific methods of observation and statistical 2. They are able to emit often a high level of radiant energy. The most credible measurement attributed to them a power of the order of 20 KW in the optical. They are most often unstable in luminosity and they are subject to a regime of light variability at the rate of a few seconds or less, with no periodicity. Variability is irregular. They can turn on for some minutes (while pulsating) and be turned off during a similar time. When they are turned off in the optical, they sometimes might be still (and often strongly) strongly visible if a night vision system is 3. The mechanism that determines their irregular pulsation, which causes an only apparent inflation of the light surface, is now quite well known from instrumental observations. The inflation is not due to the expansion of the spheres themselves but to the sudden apparition of many smaller spheres (see Figs. 2, 4) that gather together around a common barycentre and that multiply and reproduce themselves in a very short time following a mode that is very similar to cellular multiplication. Due to this behaviour an in-depth study is presently suggested in order to verify the possible evidence of a plasma life form (Tsytovich et al., 2007). The observed multiplication of secondary spheres forms a light cluster and determines a strong luminosity increase that is caused by the increase of the total surface emitting area, whose angular diameter is given by the empirical formula: where D = 2R is the intrinsic diameter of the light cluster (R is its intrinsic radius), d is the distance from the observer, P K is the luminous power received in the optical wavelength and K is the crucial constant of the problem, as both photometric and spectroscopic observations give K = T, where T is the temperature. It is therefore clear that just the radius R is the only parameter that determines the luminosity variation, assuming that here we deal with an isotropic radiator. This means that the light phenomenon behaves (at least at the time of measurements) isothermally, with no adiabatic expansion as a cooling mechanism. This is confirmed both by photometric data, where luminosity increases linearly with surface area (see Fig. 3), and by spectroscopic data, where the main observed spectral features remain unchanged when luminosity varies. The nucleus of such a cluster of spheres seems to be animated by apparently electrostatic forces, which determine totally erratic movements around the nucleus or sudden appearances and disappearances, whose origin might be due to a sort of central force able to trap the dancing spheres (Teodorani, 2008; see Fig. 6) or to an external electrochemical mechanism mediated by water vapour and aerosols that is able to confine them from outside (Teodorani, 2004a, 2008; Turner, 2003; see Fig. 6). Occasionally some of these light clusters are able to eject some of the secondary spheres following a sort of almost instantaneous motion. This behaviour suggests a electro statically-driven kinematics and that all the components of the light complex are plasma spheres, whose heat is maintained constant by a force that prevents the heated gas to cool: the off-luminosity phases are suspected to be one of the main self-regulating regimes that prevents these spheres from liberating their energy explosively when the temperature is too high within a too small confining volume (see Fig. 3). Nevertheless the clustering behaviour can be observed only when these light phenomena are observed with a zoom lens or a telescope, or when the distance away from them is very little. When looked by sight these light phenomena appear just like single occasionally inflating spheres, but a more careful observation shows that they are composed of many secondary spheres whose appearance and disappearance cause the observed light pulsation. In addition to the Hessdalen case, a similar behaviour, such as the one described here, has been reported by witnesses who observed the same kind of phenomenon in the case of the Min-min lights (Strand, 1996) in Australia and the Hornet and Paulding lights in USA (Teodorani, 2008). Figure 2. The clustering effect manifested by the light spheres observed in Hessdalen: observed light spheres are in reality composed of many secondary spheres, whose number increase is the main cause of light variability. 4. The 3-D light distribution of the overall light phenomenon is not usually of Gaussian kind (typically represented by a smoothed bell-like curve, and where luminosity decreases exponentially away from the nucleus) such as in the case of a more typical plasma, but it is quite rectilinear, as it would be expected by an uniformly illuminated solid. Apparent solidity can be more successfully explained by a model where electrochemical forces intervene in confining the plasma (Teodorani, 2004a, 2008; Turner, 2003). 5. The very few optical spectra obtained of the light phenomenon do not show a unified pattern (such as the one of a star of a given spectral type, for instance). This means that such a phenomenon doesnt contain specific chemical abundances of its own but its spectrum is strictly dependent on temperature, density and pressure of the air where the localized heating occurs, and also on the position of the light phenomenon compared to the ground. In fact if the phenomenon occurs close to the ground, as it happens very often (see Fig. 4), it can produce a spectrum that reflects the composition of the soil. Sometimes, if mold spores are approached by the onset of a plasma regime the optical spectrum can simulate semi- conductive characteristics showing a LED-like spectrum (Teodorani, 2004a). Therefore spectra vary according to several parameters and do not constitute a fixed unchangeable identity paper of these objects (Teodorani, 2008; Warren, website). 6. The light phenomenon shows quite often a radar track (Strand, 1984), and anomalous radar signatures can be recorded also when a luminous phenomenon is not in sight (Montebugnoli et al., 2002). This is very interesting because it might indirectly demonstrate that also when the plasmoid is invisible it is possibly emitting in the infrared too as low- energy plasma. This might be confirmed by the fact that as it has been reported indeed when the phenomenon is in its off phases in the optical it can be visible using an image intensifier (Teodorani, 2008). 7. Most phenomena that have been studied so far are of spherical shape, but a few cases do exist in which different shapes have been encountered and where such a spherical shape changes into something else. Some examples (see Fig. 5) of such anomalous shapes have been recorded by this author in the course of his scientific expeditions in Hessdalen, Norway, in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 and in the Apennines of North Italy in 2005, and analyzed by the same author from data coming from Avalon Beach, Australia (Teodorani, 2004b, 8. A time correlation with magnetometric measurements (Strand, 1984, 1996) and/or with VLF-ELF measurements is occasionally confirmed and/or strongly suspected (Teodorani, 2004a, 2008). Possibly magnetic field intensity and VLF-ELF emission is strictly dependent on the distance to the observer and/or to intrinsic properties, which might change from time to time. In some cases the appearance of light phenomena seems to be correlated with an enhancement of the amplitude of signals of well-known ionospheric origin (Teodorani, Figure 3. Above. Time variability during 3 minutes of the luminosity of one light phenomenon phenomenon (composed of many secondary clustered spheres) observed in Hessdalen, July 2001. Data were taken using a Canon TM-1 professional videocamera. Below. Correlation between luminosity (countings) and surface area of a light phenomenon characterized by a clustering effect. 9. There is no clear scientific proof that such phenomena are subject to colour change when their speed varies. On the contrary, it can often happen that spheres of different colours (most often white, red and blue) coexist together in a static configuration (see Fig. 4, Teodorani, 10. Many witnesses report that such phenomena tend to approach very often people and/or animals in a way that goes beyond a simple mechanism of electrostatic attraction. In fact biophysical studies, to be possibly correlated with the findings coming from recent experimental research (Tsytovich, 2007), have been deeply encouraged (Teodorani, 2008). Figure 4. One example of a multiple light-ball photographed by this author in Hessdalen, July 2002. Shape and dimensional variation is also shown on the left. These are the essential observational elements that can be technically described by observations carried out so far, according, at least, to the investigations of this author and its comparative studies with other investigators. It is out of the scope of this part of the presentation to discuss in details the theories and/or work hypotheses that explain the triggering causes and confinement mechanisms of such plasma spheres. It can only be mentioned that the best candidate theories for the triggering causes of these light balls are so far of geophysical nature, in particular piezoelectricity, triboluminescence and the more recent and complete P-hole theory (Freund, 2003; Teodorani, 2004a, 2008), while the proposed plasma confinement mechanisms have involved several kinds of central forces of magnetic, electromagnetic, gravitational and electrochemical nature (Fryberger, 1997; Smirnov, 1994; Teodorani & Strand, 1998; Teodorani, 2004a, 2008; Turner, 2003; Zou, What is of interest here, once all the observed characteristics (that are available so far) are fixed quite clearly as an overall constant of the phenomenon, is to try to predict what are the effects that these light phenomena can cause in the environment and our technological devices, such as for instance aviation and its safety. Therefore we should now analyze critically some of the described characteristics and try to make consequent deductions concerning the main point of pertinence: aviation safety (Haines, 2000; Haines & Roe, 2001; Roe, 2004). This point will be made along with a quite detailed discussion of physical hypotheses that might stand upon the nature of such phenomena i