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This is Volume 2 of the Ministry of Defence report 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region', Defence Intelligence Staff Scientific and Technical Memorandum 55/2/00, dated February 2000 and received 7 December 2000. It gathers 25 working papers on natural and man-made phenomena, meant as a reference for analysing UAP reports. The papers cover ball lightning, radar detection, balloons, satellites, mirages, plasma and similar subjects. One paper compares magnetic field experiments on human volunteers with close encounter reports. It concludes that effects from such fields are 'uncannily similar' to what witnesses describe.
“ball lightning”28 pages
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- Temperature emitted burns humans (see paragraph 20, below).
17. EM Radiation An intense E field, set up during storm conditions can charge sharp protrusions. This is thought to account for the attraction (often erratic darting movements) of globes/balls to sharp edges, pylons, fence etc. The presence of these fields causes sparking, incandescent traces (and radio interference/static). The electrical potential is quoted as $ 3-4 0 0 \mathrm{k V m}^{-1}. $ Pyrotechnic 'streamers', like a fireworks 'burst', accompany the high potentials. EM radiation (E plus H fields) are present, but little magnetic (H field) measurement has been made. Radiation (measured as RF) in storms can be at $ 6 \mathrm{k H z} $ to $ 4 5 0 \mathrm{M H z}. $ When lightning is present the radiation is very wideband $ 1 0 0 \mathrm{H z}- 4 0 0 0 \mathrm{M H z}, $ vertically polarised. The power present is reported to fall off as $ 1 / f^{2}. $ The logic for the radiation is considered at paragraph 23 below.
18. There is no indication of gamma radiation from either ball or bead lightning.
## ODOURS
19. Odours are frequently present. Most are reported as:
Sharp
- Repugnant
- Ozone-like
- Sulphurous
- Nitric oxide/dioxide
- Methane
- Burning.
It is known that an increased nitrogen level persists for long periods after passage of a lightning ball.
## EFFECT ON HUMANS
20. Serious burns and other effects are reported. [It is of particular interest that many of these are similar to those reported by UAP observers]:
- Humans burned on hands, feet and arms etc. (This seems to be unpredictable/inconsistent as sometimes no heat is reported).
- Startling and fright (specially with noisy/explosive types of ball-lightning). Some effects of fright are reported in animals. Hairs bristle, dogs/cats cower, farm animals stampede in fields.
## Humans knocked over.
Potential electromagnetic mental effects on humans, separate from these other, more tangible physical effects, are considered at Working Paper No.1 Annex F.
## EFFECTS ON ENVIRONMENT
21 The following effects have been reported:
- Holes in the ground (reportedly up to 1m in diameter and over 1m deep)
- Furrows in the earth
- Trees uprooted
- Granite boulders broken/cracked
- Water boiled (see 'heat' above (para.16) and discussion at para.26 below)
- Electrically-excited atomic/molecular species, causing single and multiple atmospheric discharges and microdischarges
- Charging of atmospheric dust particles
- Luminosity from water droplets
- Bio-luminescence and chemical luminescence/due to chemical reactions (not due to thermal sources)
- Production of visible light at room temperatures (and at other temperatures)
- Atmospheric trails/traces (usually terminating at the ball, or persisting afterwards). Pyrotechnic in appearance.
## EFFECTS ON EQUIPMENTS
22 Apart from the reported 'static' on receiving equipment (see also EM Radiation para. 17 above), example effects are: Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 258 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.