I heard an Osprey flying low last night and looked up to see if the pilot had the blue lights on the tips of the rotors lit up. This is always an interesting sight, two big blue rings of light in the sky. It was overcast and in the mid 40's, so I wasn't expecting to see much... but what I saw was amazing! Had my eyes not been expecting blue light in the sky I might have missed them, but high in the pines and hardwoods were thousands of blue fireflies. I saw one that was still, and had a continuous blue glow. Most just flashed, and had no reaction to flashing a light at them. Several in the pines, possibly because they had less back-lighting, looked like blue streaks in the sky. It was impossible to capture a picture with my phone, and I'm not finding much on-line about bugs that would be expected right here on the beach. Blue Ghost Fireflies seem to meet the description but their range doesn't seem to be this far East, or are they see in the tree tops. Any ideas why I have trees that look like somebody strung tiny blue Christmas lights in them?
It would seem that Rotor Tip Lights should be Inferred LED Emitters, so as to be NOT visible in normal Night Operations, but easily seen with the NightVision Googles now used by most Night Operations Pilots who are supporting Ground Operations....
Cool! First I have seen of rotor tip lights. I'd imagine it improves night ops safety for ground crew too.
I contacted the County Agricultural extension agent and asked if they knew anything about blue flashing lights in the trees. They didn't, but one lives in the same area where I saw them last night and said she'd look in her trees tonight. They asked if I could catch one. That's a bit of a challenge at the top of a mature Long Leaf Pine.
Blue stars? These were definitely flying around. It's 37 degrees already this evening, so I'm hoping to find one that has gotten cold and is on the ground.
It was 35 when I got to the grove of trees with the strange blue lights. They were just as active tonight as last night. I sat and watched them for a few minutes and found that the lights seemed to be running up and down the branches, and not flying about. I also noticed that the only place they were doing the blue streamer thing was up at the top of the more distant pine trees. I got a beer and watched these lights with more interest. Occasionally there was a red flash. That was new. I walked back from the trees and found the lights were visible from more than 50 yards, but seemed to only be on a few more distant trees, at their very tops. It looked like something electrical. I thought maybe some exotic illuminated fungus had attacked the trees. The answer to this mystery was revealed as I drove away from the mysterious lights. On the front of a house that backs up to the trees with the odd lights was a projected display of Christmas lights, and that moving display was primarily blue and red. The house, which was completely dark from the back was a raucous display of flashing and moving lights. The entire front of the house was lit up by the projector, with the uppermost portion of the display extending above the roof... and onto the tree tops beyond.
Now I have to find a way to play with these myself. Make the neighbors think they're seeing things at night. Lots of potential here. This could be more of a surprise than shooting bottle rockets into the East China Sea and seeing lights flashing around under the water after each explosion. I'm not sure who was more surprised, us or the poor divers.
Wait until it's overcast with a low cloud cover and point the projector straight up almost straight up. Wait for the 10:00 news.
I have seen some pretty amazing natural light shows in my years traveling around the world, but I have never seen blue fireflies! Just a note, most u.s. mil rotorwing aircraft have lit rotors, some are purely infrared, while others lime the Osprey are visible to the naked eye! On the Osprey, there are both systems, the reason is for night time operations close to the ground to help and the crew in avoiding obstacles as well as to aid in night refueling, given that the Osprey has such a broad speed range, it's important to be able to see the rotor disks during the entire operation to avoid an accident that could get a bunch of folks killed! They are pretty awesome to ride in and to see in action, especially at night!
