Earthquake lights' generate UFO sightings

The lights are difficult to catch on camera. Image Credit: sxc.hu

An extremely rare geological phenomenon has been identified as the source of some UFO reports.

Earthquake lights can manifest in a number of different ways and occur only in the rarest of circumstances. Sightings of floating spheres of light, strange blue glowing columns and lightning that reaches upwards instead of downwards have all been attributed to the phenomenon.

Researchers have recently identified a total of 65 recorded incidents involving earthquake lights over the last few hundred years and believe they have identified the conditions that create them.

"When a powerful seismic wave runs through the ground and hits a layer of such rocks, it compresses the rocks with great pressure and speed, creating conditions under which large amounts of positive and negative electrical charges are generated," said physics professor Friedemann Freund.

"These charges can then travel together, allowing them to reach what's called a plasma state, which can burst out and shoot up into the air."