Record-breaking lightning bolts, an odd orb over New Jersey, and what might be the return of the mysterious monolith phenomenon were among the strange, unusual, and enlightening stories to cross our desk this week.
This past week saw a pair of videos featuring puzzling aerial phenomena pop up online beginning with a spellbinding piece of footage from North Carolina's Outer Banks. The time lapse presentation, created by photographer Wes Snyder, captures a series of red trails that inexplicably appear close to the ground on the horizon. Given the site's proximity to an air force base, the mystified artist theorized that the anomalies could be connected to flights emanating from the area. Less certain about his sighting was truck driver Tavis Rivera, who spotted a curious glowing orb in the morning sky as he drove along the highway in New Jersey and actually pulled his rig over to the side of the road to film the confounding UFO.
The enormous power of Mother Nature was in the news this week when the World Meteorological Organization announced that two lightning bolts from 2020 had set new world records. The first megaflash, which occurred over the southern United States, earned the title of longest lightning bolt ever with the staggering length of 477 miles! It was joined by another blast that erupted over Uruguay and Argentina two years ago and lasted a whopping 17.1 seconds, which was a new record for longest duration for a lightning bolt . Fortunately the two megaflashes were of the cloud-to-cloud variety so no one on the ground wound up being tragically linked to the historic weather events.
This past week saw a blast from the recent past when a mysterious monolith appeared on the side of a highway near Phoenix. The odd object hearkened back to the pre-pandemic days of early 2020 when the puzzling pieces were popping up all over the planet. Seemingly confirming the unsettling feeling, expressed by many, that we still haven't quite escaped the weirdness that was that harrowing year, the origin of the newfound monolith is unknown and officials in Arizona are currently debating what to do with the piece. Time will tell if the mysterious monoliths wind up making a return or if the Arizona object is merely a one-off bit of nostalgia.
For more strange and unusual stories from the past week, check out the Coast to Coast AM website.