Hi All. It seems “earthquake lights” (EQL) have been with us long before man first wrote about them. The report that I received about the lights east of Sonoma may, or may not be EQLs. I would like to be able to say only time will tell, but even then it may never be known as an earthquake in that area would not be proof that they were indeed EQLs.

In 1961 there were two earthquakes about 2 minutes apart south of Hollister. Both quakes were a little over M>5.0 and occurred in the foothills just west of Cienega Road. They were seen by a Mr. Reese Dooley a poultry rancher. He stopped his car and got out of it when he felt the first quake. He was going back to his car when the second quake started. He looked towards the hill west of him and saw a number of sequential flashes from different random places on the hillside. The hill was inspected later and no electrical wiring, or any other conventional explanation for the lights was found.

There have been reported lights seen in the area of The Pinnacles, but I have never been able to confirm any of the reports.

So-called "earthquake lights" are nothing new. The Greek historian Thucydides wrote that "immense columns of flame" foretold the destruction of two ancient cities, Helice and Burls, by earthquake. A Japanese haiku (Haiku-A Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.) recorded the following.

“The earth speaks softly

to the mountain,

Which trembles

And lights the sky.”

What's new is the possibility that scientists may be able to reliably duplicate these extraordinary effects, including earthquake lights or "coronal discharges," under artificial conditions in the lab. Because some earthquake-related effects occur hours and even weeks before the quakes themselves, further research into the nature of the earthquake precursors holds the promise of one day (no one says this will be soon) predicting quakes.

In a recent issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research, physicist Friedemann Freund theorizes that positive charges can be generated when huge stresses are generated along faults in the Earth's crust. The rocks in the crust normally act as insulators that conduct electrical charges only poorly. But under the severe stress generated before an earthquake, these rocks may behave briefly like "p-type semiconductors" found in computer chips, capable of releasing large numbers of positive charges referred to as "holes." These charges speed upward toward the surface of the Earth at between 220 and 660 mph. I’m not sure as to how these figures were derived.

Of course as with everything there are those who support the theory to EQLs and there are those who don’t.

Freund, a professor at San Jose State University in California, thinks they ionize the atmosphere upon reaching the air, accounting for the bizarre effects -- radio interference and colored streamers, flashes and glows reported by thousands of observers.

Freund's most recent publications detail how he has moved beyond theory and developed an experimental means to generate stresses in rocks, which "can account for earthquake-related electrical signals causing electric discharges and earthquake lights."

As Freund says, it's tough to do basic research while waiting for the Earth "to repeat the experiment."

By 1986, however, seismologist John Derr described in the scientific journal Nature experiments by Brian Brady and Glen Rowell of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in which they broke rocks in darkness.

As the rocks broke, the men detected light that did not have the characteristic spectrum of the minerals in the rock, but of the air.

The observations suggested that something given off by the breaking of the rocks ionized the air. This is a case of knowing something, seeing something, but not understanding what it is that you know or see is insufficient for proving something. Take Care…Don in creepy town