Was it the aliens?

[swee'pea99]

So there's me, ambling into the woods with the hound, and I see this tree with a weird 5" wide strip of bark missing, all the way up, far as I can see...

Then I see the same thing on another tree, maybe 12' away...

On the way back, a park keeper gives me the story. Lightning strike. Down that one, then up that one.

Telegram discussion with friends, beginning with...


I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that ground is nearer the ground than back up the tree

Controversial

Water runs downhill and electricity always seeks the quickest and least resistant route to ground

That's what I was learned

My thinking too

I'm pretty sure those are like immutable laws given a normally-constituted environment

Having reached the ground, why would it set off going up another tree?

It wouldn't



Well, would it?



My daughter also expressed scepticism. She questioned the lack of scorch marks.

I don't know what to think. There were people standing around saying they'd heard it.

But





















they could be aliens too.

 

[machew]

 

[biggs682]

Who know , but lightning strike sounds fair enough

 

[rikki]

Whatever did that needs its toenails trimmed.

 

[rikki]

Drop bears - obviously.

 

[matiz]

I thing we are all barking up the wrong tree here it looks man made like the crop circle mystery.

 

[DCBassman]

A lightning strike is often more than a simple discharge to ground, and can indeed involve different directions of current flow.
https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/lightning/faq/

 

[Globalti]

Seeing as lightning can track along the ground jumping cliffs and hollows (which is why you shouldn't hide under an overhang or in a hollow) it's possible, but I reckon more likely it was just multiple branches of the same strike. I've seen an entire oak tree completely stripped of its bark, amazing to see.

 

[DCBassman]

It could be.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

There's no scorch marks because when lightning hits a tree it boils off the water in it's path causing the bark to explode outwards. It's only if the tree is dry that it scorches or catches fire.

 

[rikki]

Where is the missing bark?

 

[numbnuts]

http://browpicz.pw/Tree-in-my-town-burning-from-a-lightning-strike-Lightning-strikes.html

 

[Drago]

T'is a typical lightning strike. However, I'd suggest one tree isn't the return, and that both were struck separately.

 

[Dayvo]

Squirrels' bike lanes:

 

[Kempstonian]

T'is a typical lightning strike. However, I'd suggest one tree isn't the return, and that both were struck separately.

Yeah, this^^. Or is it possible for lighning to branch and hit two trees simultaneously?