GNGTS 2024 - Atti del 42° Convegno Nazionale

Session 2.3 GNGTS 2024 Video footage capturing similar phenomena has become increasingly common in the afermath of numerous recent earthquakes, facilitated by the widespread use of mobile phones and surveillance systems. Consequently, the term "seismic lights" is now regularly employed, surfacing multple tmes each year, within a progressively expanding community of journalists and bloggers. The implicatons of this growing awareness present an intriguing aspect. The phenomena associated with strong earthquakes, ofen serving as precursors, consistently contribute to ongoing discussions. Yet, an essental gap warrants examinaton before delving into the implicatons, namely, the absence of a critcal perspectve in the reportng of these recordings. Fig. 2 – Two photograms of the same video in two diferent moments capturing fashes of the Turkey earthquake, during the frst fash in a and during a following fash in b Indeed, a signifcant porton of recent flming has concentrated in inhabited areas where the populaton resides, coinciding with the presence of an electricity distributon network. As seismic waves traverse through, the anchoring points of the electrical grid oscillate, causing electrical cables to stretch and break at vulnerable points, Fig. 3. During the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake (Fidani, 2010), numerous accounts described electrical cables detaching from the corners of houses at the moment of the tremor, emitng sparks ranging from red to blue. Furthermore, there were discharges observed between high-voltage cables in the vicinity of the city during the earthquake, resultng in prolonged illuminatons resembling lightning from a thunderstorm. Many instances of seismic lights may have originated from short circuits in the electrical grid and are not mysterious phenomena without clear explanatons. Regarding bright spots in the sky, historical testmonies abound, and several videos have consistently reported them, displaying stable light characteristcs with oscillatng colours transitoning from red to yellow to white. In some recent cases, explanatons have been ofered, ranging from the menton of Chinese lanterns to atributons of the phenomenon to drone movements, and even digital artfacts intentonally created to suggest extraterrestrial visits. Regardless of the interpretaton, it is crucial that when a digital document captures an unusual phenomenon, it should include essental details such as the date, tme, and locaton of the observaton.