funny lights

[bluestar50299]

Hi all, I wonder if anyone knows what these strange lights are????

[Dalreg]

They aren't lights thats for sure.

I'm thinking it is a discolouration of the ground? If the oval thing is a water trough for cattle or sheep? the ground around it would be trampled to bare earth. Thus the light stuff could merely be the colour of the soil.

[bluestar50299]

very true i had'nt thought of that ;)

[jan15]

Very curious. Most of those bright spots have some sort of lump at the brightest part. A few are trough-like, but most look like a pile. The most common pile shape is like half of an American football (sorry, I don't know another word for that shape), but many look like half-cylinders, and many others have a roughly oval or rectangular plan shape. Some have dark perimeters, and I even saw one case where the whole pile was dark but the ground around was bright.

It's interesting that they're all over that region, only in farm fields, not near houses. Not in every field, but some fields have two of them. And they're all through the area photographed in that one strip, but the next strip over to the left has the same resolution but no bright spots or piles. Maybe that other photo was taken after the fertilizer had been distributed through the fields, or before the crop had been harvested and piled up. We need someone who knows about farming. Especially poppy farming, since this is Afghanistan.

[Lord SteveO]

My guess is something to do with farming. They are in nearly every field in that photographed ara.
Could they be piles of some sort of vegetation, possibly cleared from harvested fields?
Either that or maybe they are mound of stones cleared to make the field easier to plough. Perhaps the farmers cleared all the stones away and left the in a big pile in each field? The stones in that area could be brighter than the soil so they show up really well in the photos?

[SSSALVI]

They seem to be pile of cut crop which will later be crushed and the husk will be separated by blowing it by wind. Since the husk is a bright yellow covering it radiates sun. These are the bright areas at each of the processing center.

Processing in different stages is seen in the three place marks M1, M2 and M3.

A question that I am unable to answer to me is: Why is there bright area even before the husk is blown ( e.g. M1 )?

[Dalreg]

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/GeoImages/Powell/Afghan/022.jpg

Wheat harvest.

[SSSALVI]

Great Delrag, Now that is what we call a ground level picture.

[Cooper Green]

Those are definitely lights. That is an oil-producing region, and I believe the lights are flames from natural gas stacks. They burn off the vapours so they won't collect and explode.

[Dalreg]

Those are definitely lights. That is an oil-producing region, and I believe the lights are flames from natural gas stacks. They burn off the vapours so they won't collect and explode.

Check out the other posts here. They are more likely the correct answers.

Welcome to the forum.

PS that area doesn't have any oil production.

[SSSALVI]

Those are definitely lights. That is an oil-producing region, and I believe the lights are flames from natural gas stacks. They burn off the vapours so they won't collect and explode.

Fire is accompanied by smoke.

Refer to an earlier thread " Oil Fire in Algeria discussion " for a real gas burning.

Welcome to the GEH.


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Shashi

[Cooper Green]

Thanks for welcoming me to the forums, Dalreq and SSSALVI, and I agree that I should have been much more circumspect before posting. A good number of people who are clearly much more patient than I have given this phenomenon much more thought than I have. I should have read their posts more thoroughly before offering my opinion.

On the other hand, I can't help thinking that my first impression has some merit. The areas of light that bluestar50299 found have really captured my curiosity. It seems to me that flames might cast very similar patterns: every spot of luminosity appears to have a point of origin that diminishes with distance, just like a flame; the light spots are spread over a very large area, perhaps hundreds or thousands of hectares, the sort of area consistent with an oilfield or natural gas field; and gases such as natural gas or methane burn smokelessly. I might be mistaken, but the light spots seem to be smaller and more numerous near developed areas. To me, that suggests that they are manmade.

Dalreq you are correct, this does not seem to be a region with oil, but it is believed that there are substantial natural gas reserves in northern Afghanistan. SSSALVI, you mention a thread that discusses oil fires. Can you direct me there?

Thanks again for your positive response to an ill-conceived post. Google Earth is an incredible machine, and I look forward to participating in these sorts of discussions more in the future.

[jan15]

Here's the file Shashi was talking about. It has lots of black smoke, but it's a crude oil fire, not a gas fire.

As you said, natural gas burns without much visible fume. I burn some every day in my kitchen, when I cook. And this photo (http://www.borealbirds.org/images/Oil-burnoff-at-Norman-Wells.jpg) shows an oil well burning off excess gas, with no smoke.

I've also attached another file, which shows a very large gas burn-off flame, at a refinery, not a well, with some grey wispy areas that it calls "shadows".

However... some questions are raised by the gas theory. For example:

– Why do the bright spots occur only in that one satellite image, and all through that image, but not in adjacent image areas? Did all the wells in the other image areas stop burning off gas before those images were taken? Or had they not been drilled yet?

– What are the oval and football-shaped lumps?

– Where are the shadows or other indications of oil well derricks?

[SSSALVI]

I should have been much more circumspect before posting. A good number of people who are clearly much more patient than I have given this phenomenon much more thought than I have. I should have read their posts more thoroughly before offering my opinion.


Hello Cooper,

Don't feel that you are alone. I did not read many posts when I joined GEH.

You have put up a strong argument about gas burning and that is not totally wrong.

But the gas burning will invariably be on top of the chimney like tube.

The tube will generally not be visible in Satellite photo but it will cast a very characteristic shadow. In the original kmz file there are no such shadows.

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Shashi

[Ravenfeather]

No, No, No, you guys got it all wrong...
Those are Meteors hurdling toward the ground, signaling the End of the World. ;)
I agree with the Grain Harvesting theory.

[MichaelIezzi]

Look at these nasty lights above my hometown