Alright. I'm not nuts. Seriously.
I live in Blacklick, Ohio; a small suburb of Columbus. On January 9th, 2008 we had a massive wind storm overnight. Wind gusts of 55MPH and such. Around 1:20am, I heard a noise that raised me right out of my bed. The sound was of electricity escaping, almost like a Jacob's Ladder without the snap at the end. The electricity in my house was flickering, trying valiantly to stay on. Outside at this exact moment, was a very bright greenish/blue light; it was so bright that it flooded my bedroom. We have light-blocking shades on our windows and it was still impressive.
This light almost looked as if someone was shinging a light down at you when you're underwater, and it only appeared when the electricity was flickering. It appeared about two or three separate times. My wife and I were kind of freaking out as we thought that lightening was hitting our house. We quickly realized that there was no thunder and that the light was directly in sync with the electricity sound.
I ran to a window and was looking out at the light, thinking that a transformer must be blowing up (it was seriously that bright and loud). I realized that our neighborhood has no above ground electricity poles. None.
I grabbed a flashlight and looked out to our electicity box in our backyard and noticed that it wasn't blackened, and still in one piece.
The power was out for a few more hours and I finally fell asleep around 3:00am. When I wake up in the morning, all is calm and the power is back on. Nothing was damaged at all.
So what was it? I have no fucking idea. I am an educated man, and I was completely sober. My wife saw the light and heard the sounds along with me.
Fast forward to today. My Father-In-Law calls and says that he was listening to a local radio program and they mentioned this phenomena. I guess that twenty or so people reported it, and an airline pilot saw it as he was approaching Columbus' airport (CMH). They said that this exact phenomena was spotted by people in Texas around the same time.
I'm dying to know what this phenomena was. I've never seen anything like it. My only guess is that it was St. Elmo's Fire, but I'm not sure what circumstances are required to create it.
Last year, my wife and I went to see Parliment Funkadelic at a local venue. Much to our surprise, the Columbus Mayor, Michael Coleman was in attendance! He actually introduced the band and said what an honor it was to talk with George Clinton backstage. Later on, I noticed the Mayor in the balcony grooving out to the sounds of the Mothership. I was pretty damned impressed that the Mayor of a major metropolis knows how to get down, because man, if you can get down with PFunk, you know what's up.
