Comment by snidane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by snidane | Hacker News Reader

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Living in Astoria, NY and this happened a mile away from me.

At first my TV blips, my spotify shuts down and outside you could see this very bright turquoise light all over the place. It was bright like it was a daytime just in the green blue color. At first I thought it must had been some fireworks nearby, New Year is coming, right? But there was no fireworks noise, no party noise, nothing, just this bright green lit city. I open the window and some lady in the building across me does the same and shouts 'wtf is that?!'.

I realize this was not a party and my brain starts spinning..

1. EMP attack, since the TV got affected 2. Asteroid or comet entering the atmosphere and messing up the magnetosphere 3. Strong solar outburst, causing some local aurora

I recently watched Robert Schoch's interview where he discussed huge solar outbursts at the end of last ice age and how the sightings of resulting auroras might have made it into ancient cultures.

[https://youtu.be/Vka2ZgzZTvo roughly at 21:00]

In the end I rushed to the rooftop, scared as f, and noticed this was just a transformer on fire at nearby power plant. Took a video, waited it out and went back.

> In the end I rushed to the rooftop, scared as f

I'm glad that you were ok. I would probably have over-reacted by diving under the bed. The lesson that I took from the footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor (1) is this:

When people see a sudden bright light in the sky, the usual reaction is for them to go to the window to see what it is. So then the blast wave arrives in time to give them a face full of flying glass shards. (2)

Don't do this! Doesn't matter if you're being nuked or if it's only a meteor, get down and stay away from the windows! Nothing good will come of having a look-see.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor#Injuries_an...

Your comment also reminded me of the Halifax harbor explosion [1]. A ship in the harbor collided with a cargo ship carrying explosives. A fire started and everyone came to their windows to look. Then the cargo ship exploded sending the shockwave through the city. In addition to the people who died in the initial blast another 5900 had eye injuries, mostly from shattered windows. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion#Disaster

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion#Destruction_...

Knowing what's going on kind of dictates your response. If it's a forest fire, for example, swift action is much preferable to hiding under the bed. Hence looking out the window.

How swift? It can't be more than 15 seconds between flash of light and shockwave. Staying down for that long in case there's a shockwave seems reasonable.

Also, forest fires are not typically sudden flashes of light or found in urban areas. Context matters.

According to the experience in Halifax explosion, a blast wave travels at 1000 m/s; so you get 15 seconds if the blast happens 10 miles away from you.

Good to know. In the unlikely event etc, I'll give it 20 seconds or so then.

Same thing happened with the Halifax Explosion.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/halifax-explosion...

When people see a sudden bright light in the sky, the usual reaction is for them to go to the window to see what it is.

Also, the lights my blind you. Then the carnivorous plants come.

I thought your comment was going to be about UV concerns..

video

"The transformer explosion in Astoria was... right outside my window. So bright I couldn’t look directly at it."

https://twitter.com/nickriccardo/status/1078479911952756737

Admit it, you thought of aliens too.

> In the end I rushed to the rooftop, scared as f, and noticed this was just a transformer on fire at nearby power plant. Took a video, waited it out and went back.

Care to share the video you took? :)

EMP weapons are not a real thing.

If you detonate a nuclear weapon above a city, no matter how far above, you will call upon you a nuclear response. There’s no difference between an EMP attempt and a nuclear strike. So why would you attempt an EMP attack when that means giving up most of the destructive force to maybe burn out powerlines, and guaranteed surface nuclear response on your territory?

Non-nuclear EMP devices are surely real. They can fit in somebody's basement, don't have to be delivered by missile.

My high school physics says that’s BS, but EMP scare tactics does make for a great info-war weapon. It’s quite the boogeyman if you don’t have much science background.

Stuxnet like attacks are way way more plausible and likely.

> if you don’t have much science background

Like HS physics

It comes across as somewhat condescending and naive to refer to a HS class as having a notable amount of science background. And a reason to dismiss other sources of information.

Sources that invalidate foundational theory? It’s like claims that cell radios cause molecular damage in humans; that probably requires proving Enstien’s Nobel prize winning work on the photoelectric effect is wrong.

I must have missed the class on the axiomatic foundational theory of EMPs-are-only-from-nuclear-blasts.

Or, the HS physics overview that you and I share simply doesn't dip very deeply into these topics.

Well, high school physics trumps googling around I guess. Good luck with that.

You shouldn't be down voted. Non-nuclear EMP devices exist but due to the inverse square law (which we learned in high school physics) we know that they have short effective range. And they require a large conventional explosive to generate the pulse. So they work but are not a major threat worth worrying about.

What does actually work and have been operationally used are graphite bombs designed to short out electrical equipment. Those are much cheaper and more effective than EMP weapons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb

Buddy you’re gonna have to learn that sometimes your teachers are just wrong. Just because they’re in some position of authority doesn’t automatically qualify their credentials

What are you talking about? Google 'explosively pumped flux compression generator'. LANL wrote a paper on how to do this in the '70s and did real world tests. You output to the antenna or right into the grid.

If I recall correctly they mostly used RDX.

The film Threads (which strived for accuracy) had a full scale nuclear attack on the U.K. preceded by a high altitude nuclear detonation over the North Sea, in order to knock out as many systems as possible with an EMP. And from the Starfish Prime test, we know that such events also create an unusual coloured light display.

https://www.resilientsocieties.org/research.html

I don't think you can say EMP weapons don't exist. I know what you're trying to say, but attacking a city with an EMP strike will be seen international ly as far more favorable than an actual strike.

Also, an EMP strike can be detonated really high in the atmosphere where we would have zero chance to intercept and is more economical for non first world countries.

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