I'm not sure where to post this, but I'll try here. I first noticed this..problem a couple of cars ago. I noticed that an unusual amount of street lights went off as I approached, or passed by. I thought it might be because the headlights were angled at such a way that they triggered a daylight affect, thus the lights would go out. But I also noticed that it seemed to coincide with my menstrual cycle ( sorry to be so personal )Then, when I got my Brand new vehicle, I thought, well, I'll just see what happens now, as the headlights are aimed perfectly. Well, it is still happening. For a few days before, during, and a few days after my cycle, street lights flick off all the time. I could drive one mile and it happens at least once, (and it's not always the same light) and sometimes as many as 4 or 5. My question is-- is it possible for this to happen due to a change in chemistry or electrical impulses, or SOMETHING that takes place during my cycle to cause this to happen, or is it just a coincidence?
I think it's highly unlikely that any physical or chemical changes taking place in your body would affect the street lights. I have seen a similar report by a jogger who reported streetlights going out when he jogged past them. Most street lights are controlled by photoelectric devices mounted on the top of the fixture so that they come on when the sky is darkened and turn off when they are exposed to daylight. While it is remotely possible that headlights could be reflected by a couple of strategically located reflective surfaces to hit the light sensor, that seems far-fetched in the case of several street lights, or as the result of jogging past. I would venture a guess that the cause could be something as simple as a loose connection in the wiring. Vibration from a car paasing over the underground conduit could create an intermittent interruption to the circuit. The same is true of those street lights that are fed from overhead wiring. The light poles themselves can vibrate from the fact that the heavy light fixture is cantilevered at considerable distance from the support. If it happened to me, I would test it out by causing vibrations at the pole and light(s) in question. Remember though, when you extinguish a gaseous vapor light it takes a long time before it can be relit. I would also have to test it under non-menstrual conditions. ******************************************************* 07-18-02, 03:39 AM Pin~Jinx LVLF, I assure you, there is NO problem with you or anything science-fictional about you that Streetlights and head-lamps are affected by your hormonal changes. There is nothing to worry about. It could be that the batteries get old after twenty,thirty days and the local-authority of traffic management forgets to change them / reset them timely. It could be a fuse aswell. But Beleive you me, there is NO WAY that the chemical changes in you could be converted into electro-magnetic rays and thus tranferred into the neon-lamps. wink Take Good Care of Yourself, Pin~Jinx
10-17-06, 09:51 PM DorianGreyed LVLF, this used to happen to me for a period of about 15-20 years. Then, it stopped. (I assure you that menstrual cycles had nothing to do with it. Eek) Every time I drove at night on a highway, it happened. Even people who rode with me on a regular basis noticed it. I can't explain it, but it was a real happening, not something I imagined or something that happened to anyone else that I knew.
10-18-06, 06:36 AM Sherasi I also have had the same thing happen to me.. AND I also had persons note and comment on the fact of the occurrence. It was quite disconcerting.... it never cooincided with my menses however. Wink Big Grin Razz
10-20-06, 05:03 PM Professor This topic was addressed by The Straight Dope column by Cecil Adams back in 1994 here . Many people are convinced that they can affect the street lamps in various ways, and I, too, have sometimes been struck by the feeling that the lights somehow know I'm there. But it turns out to be basically coincidence. As is our human tendency, we are much more likely to notice the lights that extinguish just as we approach them than we are the many lights that do not.
Cecil quotes a "top high pressure sodium engineer at General Electric" (the bracketed clarifications are in the original):
quote: It is a combination of coincidence and wishful thinking.... Cycling [on and off] occurs because the [lamp] ballast is only able to sustain an arc with a certain maximum voltage. As high pressure sodium lamps age, their voltage increases as sodium is lost by various chemical processes. [The lamp starts at a low voltage, which climbs to a steady-state value as the lamp warms up.] It is the steady-state voltage that slowly increases with burning hours due to sodium loss. Eventually, the ballast will only be able to start a cold lamp and warm it up to the dropout voltage. Then it goes out until the lamp is cool enough to restart.
As for the photo-cell hypothesis, one of the commentators notes that, at least in Chicago, "streetlamps don't have individual photocells. The photocell is in a master electrical box that controls 25 or 30 lights."
In any case, it's not likely to be bodily emanations, bad karma, magnetic personality, or space aliens from the 5th dimension. I don't buy the loose-connections theory, either (sorry, Frank Smile ).
If you're a conservative, just go ahead and blame it on Clinton!
10-20-06, 06:00 PM DorianGreyed I assure you that, as I was driving, paying attention to any streetlights that went out, I noticed that most didn't. On one stretch of highway, one that I traveled frequently, at least one light failed almost every night I drove that road. At a minimum, that represents 1% of all the lights along that road. Is the failure rate of those types of lights so great that they need replacing every 3 months?
Sorry, but the explanation doesn't fit the observations. I have no idea what caused it, but I do know that it happened, and the odds of my being the one driving under an expected light failure on a nightly basis are similar to the odds of being abducted by a UFO piloted by a sasquatch and Judge Crater.
10-20-06, 07:12 PM frankvan
quote: As is our human tendency, we are much more likely to notice the lights that extinguish just as we approach them than we are the many lights that do not.
Not only are we more likely to notice "the lights that extinguish" as we approach, but we also are less likely to notice the ones that extinguish after we have passed. The same is true of the light that suddenly comes on in the spot that had been dark a moment earlier. It helps to realize, also, that not all street lights are controlled by photocells, some are individually controlled, some are controlled by astronomical clocks, which can compensate for the changing in daylight/darkness hours. And contrary to what the GE light guy explains, not all street lights are sodium vapor, not all high-pressure, some are mercury vapor and in some antique installations they are incandescents in series, which replaced carbon arc lights, which replaced gas lights, etc.
As to anecdotal reports: I walk every morning, before daylight, with the help of a wheeled walker about 9 or 10 laps around the apartment complex where I live. The parking lot is illuminated by what appear to be sodium vapor or other gaseous discharge lamps. There are at least 2 on my route that periodically go out when I approach (mind you, I can't say what they do after I pass), but almost as often come on with equal unpredictability.Also, the failure rate is very low, which is the reason for their popularity. All gaseous discharge light sources require a ballast because, unlike metal filaments, their light source is an arc which has an opposite characteristic. Its resistance goes down when lit. If they go out on voltage fluctuations, they DO come back - albeit slowly.
My little grand-daughter, some thirty years ago, used to point to red traffic lights as we drove through the city. Magically, she turned them to green, without fail. I suspect that's somethng like what Dorian does. Wink
10-20-06, 07:26 PM frankvan And, professor, the loose connection theory, was my suggestion to explain the 'sworn true' account of a jogger bouncing past a given street light. And, hey! that was many years ago!.
10-20-06, 07:28 PM DorianGreyed After the first few years, I started looking in my rear-view mirror to see what was with the lights. Since it was a lightly-used road (at the time of night I was on it), there was no problem seeing that the lights did not come back on.
Please note that I am making no claims other than what I observed over a period of 15 or so years. I'd like to know what caused it, but what has been offered so far just doesn't explain it. Coincidences do not happen nightly over a period of years.
10-22-06, 12:28 PM frankvan I don't understand what you mean about the lights seen through your rear view mirror "didn't come back on". If they went out as you approached, I wouldn't expect them to come back on. That's the nature of gaseous discharge lamps. They remain off until they cool sufficiently. What I was talking about regarding the observation of such phenomena is: one is not likely to notice lights that go off other than those ahead of one. We don't see those behind us, those sufficiently distant, those that are not part of the pattern. In a uniform pattern of lights we tend to notice those occurences that alter the pattern. A light goes out that had been on, a light comes on that had been out, etc. What did you feel was the significance of their "not coming back on"?
If, as you say, you make no claims; it would appear that you do mke some sort of claim. You claim that you have, or had, the ability to influence by your proximity the behavior of inanimate objects. Forgive me, but I must express skepticism. How many lights were on that particular stretch of road? Was it always the same lights involved? Did you ever mark the pole or pavement, or replicate the situation? Is it not the implied responsibility of AnswerPool to seek answers to unexplained phenomena? Confused
10-22-06, 02:42 PM DorianGreyed What I meant to convey was that I was paying careful attention to the lights, whether they were in front of me or not. I did not say that very clearly before.
I wonder why I didn't notice all the lights (that your example mentions) popping back on as I either approached or drove away.
Regarding any claim, I have to ask if you assume that someone who comes inside and says it is raining is claiming to have in some way caused the rain. I think that he is merely reporting an observation that he made. A driver who drives into and out and back into a rain storm is making no claim as to why it was raining in one spot and yet not raining in another. He just knows that it happened.
Your reasoning that it must be an error of the observer who reports what he sees seems to be like those who state that it can't rain frogs or fish because it can't happen. It can happen, it has happened, and it will happen again. Before the nature of waterspouts was understood, raining frogs and fish was, of course, impossible. It was only after man found out how frogs and fish would come down was it declared possible. But that didn't change the fact that it happened.
Anyway, the shower of fish was witnessed by members of a local writers' group. Member Kevin Kell described to BBC Radio Shropshire what he saw.
Mr Kell described how he was on his way to the meeting at the social room in St Edward's Close, Knighton, at about 2.45pm on Wednesday, 18th August 2004. - BBC News
There have been over 20 reports of fish raining down over Australia in the last 50 years. For example, a man on the northern NSW's coast woke up after a stormy night to find the roof of his house covered with fish. In 1989 a sardine shower surprised the residents of Ipswich, Queensland. And in Killarney, 320 km inland from the Northern Territory coast, three fish storms occurred in one month in 1974.
10-22-06, 03:16 PM Professor "...the odds of my being the one driving under an expected light failure on a nightly basis..."
But Dorian, the lights aren't simply failing, the way my incandescent porch light suddenly burns out after hundreds of hours of being on. They're cycling on and off -- that greatly raises the odds of seeing one light extinguish along a given stretch of road.
It's also possible that as the device ages, it cycles more frequently, accounting for reports of the same light being affected as the observer approaches on more than one occasion. Also note that these lights typically go dark quickly, but only slowly recover and ramp up their intensity over a period of minutes, even after they have recovered from overheating. So there are no claims of people causing dark lights to suddenly illuminate.
10-22-06, 06:46 PM DorianGreyed So you are saying that I only see the ones turning off, and am missing the ones turning on, despite my years of watching the lights. With the odds you ascribe to me, I don't know if I should buy a lottery ticket or stay in the house for the next few years.
I have ATT/Yahoo for my internet provider; thus, my connection to the internet goes out through the phone lines, and comes in the same way. However, after the phone line comes into the house, it must first go through a filter which separates the information signal from the phone signal. The information line goes to a modem, which is connected to the computer. Just over two weeks ago, I was told by a member of AP, via IM, that my phone was either "off the hook" or messed up, as she was calling, and getting only static. I am seated next to the phone and heard nothing, but did note that I hadn't received any calls for a few days. It didn't take long to determine that it was not my phone line, and a trip from the phone company told me that it wasn't the line coming in to the house. That left the filter and/or the modem as the cause. I noticed that when someone was calling me (we were talking in IM), my moden would go off and back on.
It took 10 days to convince ATT/Yahoo that the problem was with the filter or the modem. At one point, I explained to the repair supervisor about the incoming calls knocking me of the net. His response was, "Sir, what you describe is a physical impossibility." Now I don't know nearly enough to know if what I was describing was or wasn't a physical impossibility, so I can't contradict him. All I can do is report the observation, which was tested several times with different people. When I hooked up the new filter and modem I was finally sent, suddenly, as if by magic, my phone worked. I now get incoming calls, and I don't get knocked offline when I do.
Like I said, I don't know enough about how stuff like that works, but I can sure tell when it doesn't, or when an explanation doesn't fit the only eyewitness description of the events.
10-22-06, 07:11 PM frankvan Whenever it rains frogs, fish, etc. it usually attracts attention of several people. When one person, out of an entire population of a Q & A website, reports a greater than probable frequency of street lights cycling 'on' and/or 'off' as he drives past, one naturally assumes that that person considers it somewhat 'out of the ordinary'. If given a choice between several simple explanations why would nothing except a more esoteric one suffice? Well, even one person every four years doesn't count as an epidemic. Wink
One explanation you might consider: Years of electrical engineering trouble-shooting experience has taught me that finding the solution to an electrical mystery often consists of the process of elimination. You first have to consider and discard the reasons that defy physical laws. Obviously that requires some knowledge of the technology. Once the impossible reasons are ruled out, the remaining reason is the most likely one. The fact that a very reliable and truthful eyewitness reports something often proves inaccurate. IMHO.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: frankvan, 10-22-06 08:28 PM
10-22-06, 07:34 PM FredPuli
quote: Originally posted by frankvan: Years of electrical engineering trouble-shooting experience has taught me that finding the solution to an electrical mystery often consists of the process of elimination. You first have to consider and discard the reasons that defy physical laws. Obviously that requires some knowledge of the technology. Once the impossible reasons are ruled out, the remaining reason is the most likely one. The fact that a very reliable and truthful eyewitness reports something often proves inaccurate. IMHO.
Simplify , eh, Frank? This sounds like the principle, Occam's Razor. It must be Occam's Electric Razor.
10-23-06, 08:17 AM aminator2002 Was driving around this weekend paying attention to street lights and by GOD I cause them to go out as well.
Now that I have seen it I'm sure it will continue to happen and no explanation will suffice because it's just too weird that it happened right when I drove by a few of them.
Chicago has large street lights every 50' along every road so it happens to me even more than most people. I guess I must have a really strong powers.
The funny thing is that I never noticed my powers before this thread.
10-23-06, 08:39 AM frankvan
quote: I'm sure it will continue to happen and no explanation will suffice because it's just too weird that it happened right when I drove by a few of them.
Could it also be happening when you aren't anywhere near them? It might help the taxpayers if you and Dorian stayed off the streets. Wink
Of course you realize that at say 30mph you drove by over a thousand of them in a 20 minute drive @ your spacing of 50'. Quite "a few". Wink BTW, what is this this thread doing in chemistry ?
This message has been edited. Last edited by: frankvan, 10-23-06 12:33 PM
10-23-06, 01:08 PM DorianGreyed All those years, I was wrong, and apparently, so were passengers in my car. I do have one question, however. Should I send my new filter and modem back, since I must have been wrong about what was causing my phone/DSL problem? After all, an expert told me that what I described was a "physical impossibility."
10-23-06, 06:39 PM frankvan I must have missed something here, Dorian. I don't recall seeing any posting where you ascribed a cause to the street light phenomena. I never questioned your veracity, I'm sure you saw what you claim to have seen, and passengers in your car probably saw what you say they saw. How were you wrong?? I and, I believe professor, expressed the opinion that it was not something peculiar to you, or aminator, or evidence of something more than random and explainable street light behavior.
Raining frogs and fish and computer modem/filter problem diagnoses is an issue whose relevance escapes me in this thread. Confused
If an "expert" tells me that what I describe is a "physical impossibility", I assume that either the "expert" is not infallible, or - heaven forbid- my description may have been lacking in some pertinent detail.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
"Raining frogs and fish and computer modem/filter problem diagnoses is an issue whose relevance escapes me in this thread."
Frank, for at least a few centuries, some people were told that they hadn't seen what they saw, couldn't do what they claimed, couldn't build what they built, and various other similar things. And now gorillas, once thought to be myths, exist. Rockets fly. Men have walked on the moon. Life has been discovered in temperatures thought far too hot by those that "knew" about such things. The Mets won the Series, and the Jets beat the Colts. People get organ transplants daily. (Not the same people, of course.) Chicken soup actually helps. Rather than examine what was observed, people seem to try to fit it in with what they know, and when it doesn't fit, they declare the observer was wrong.
It is truly wonderful to live in an age in which everything is known.
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Posts: 17551 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Dorian, although I agree with 98 percent of most of your posts, I find it next to impossible that you, of all people, could be so way off base on this one.
Okay, you don't like any suggested causes you've heard , yet don't offer anything by way of explanation other than historical instances where others have been accused of inaccurate observation only to be vindicated years later.
Do you honestly believe that your street light observation is something unique and peculiar to you and very few individuals?
You did rule out LVLF's menstrual cycle?, as well as probability and/or coincidence, so don't you have some alternative theory to offer? Or are you content to wait for some future scientific study to prove your prescience of some hitherto unrecognized phenomenon, similar to the reports of gorilla sightings? Admittedly, I'm old and obsolete, losing brain cells daily,easily ignored; but how can you dismiss professor's arguments so easily ?
