Help me figure out what this was

[Sellsword]

Okay, so me and two friends were driving on an open road in the middle of the day. It was slightly overcast. All of a sudden, all I could see was white, and then suddenly red. It was white for a half second then red for another half second. We all looked at each other and were like, "Whoa." There was no thunder afterward.

 

The strange thing is that it wasn't like a flash of light like someone setting the flash of their camera off in your eye, it was more like someone put a white sheet of paper in front of my eyes and then a red one. All of my friends agree with this statement.

 

If it was something like ball lightning wouldn't it make our vision slightly blurry after such a close encounter?

 

I've tried finding answers on other sites but unfortunately most of the people thought it was either aliens or a government experiment. Looking for some real answers here!

[Brainteaserfan]

Okay, so me and two friends were driving on an open road in the middle of the day. It was slightly overcast. All of a sudden, all I could see was white, and then suddenly red. It was white for a half second then red for another half second. We all looked at each other and were like, "Whoa." There was no thunder afterward.

 

The strange thing is that it wasn't like a flash of light like someone setting the flash of their camera off in your eye, it was more like someone put a white sheet of paper in front of my eyes and then a red one. All of my friends agree with this statement.

 

If it was something like ball lightning wouldn't it make our vision slightly blurry after such a close encounter?

 

I've tried finding answers on other sites but unfortunately most of the people thought it was either aliens or a government experiment. Looking for some real answers here!

Where were you, what was the date, and what was the time of day?

[Sellsword]

I was in upstate New York, a town called Amenia, driving on a road that runs on an open field. It was probably around 2-5 PM on October 25, 2009. (I remember the date because it also happened to be my birthday)

 

 

Why do you ask?

Edited June 19, 2011 by Sellsword

[tar]

Sellsword,

 

Maybe it was a lightning flash, so close that the sound came at the same time, and you were in a sensory overload condition. (It's said for instance that in a bar with really loud music, you lose your sense of taste, so the bartender could be serving you anything, and you wouldn't know the difference.) Maybe such an overload of sudden strong firing of all the cones in your eyes at once would cause you to not notice the sound. And for a moment, since your cones had all fired everything they had, it took a moment for the chemicals to regenerate. And maybe there is something about the red cones that regenerate faster, so you saw red before the other colors came back. Or maybe lightning is more yellow and blue than pure white, so you had temporarily used up all your green and blue cone juice, and still had some red juice in reserve.

So you saw red, until the other cones recovered.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

P.S. From hyperphysics

"Current understanding is that the 6 to 7 million cones can be divided into "red" cones (64%), "green" cones (32%), and "blue" cones (2%) based on measured response curves. They provide the eye's color sensitivity. The green and red cones are concentrated in the fovea centralis . The "blue" cones have the highest sensitivity and are mostly found outside the fovea, leading to some distinctions in the eye's blue perception."

Edited June 29, 2011 by tar

[Brainteaserfan]

I was in upstate New York, a town called Amenia, driving on a road that runs on an open field. It was probably around 2-5 PM on October 25, 2009. (I remember the date because it also happened to be my birthday)

 

 

Why do you ask?

Maybe search the weather, and seismic activity for the day. That's what I was thinking. However, I didn't see anything unusual in the quick check that I did of those.

[Sellsword]

Sellsword,

 

Maybe it was a lightning flash, so close that the sound came at the same time, and you were in a sensory overload condition. (It's said for instance that in a bar with really loud music, you lose your sense of taste, so the bartender could be serving you anything, and you wouldn't know the difference.) Maybe such an overload of sudden strong firing of all the cones in your eyes at once would cause you to not notice the sound. And for a moment, since your cones had all fired everything they had, it took a moment for the chemicals to regenerate. And maybe there is something about the red cones that regenerate faster, so you saw red before the other colors came back. Or maybe lightning is more yellow and blue than pure white, so you had temporarily used up all your green and blue cone juice, and still had some red juice in reserve.

So you saw red, until the other cones recovered.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

P.S. From hyperphysics

"Current understanding is that the 6 to 7 million cones can be divided into "red" cones (64%), "green" cones (32%), and "blue" cones (2%) based on measured response curves. They provide the eye's color sensitivity. The green and red cones are concentrated in the fovea centralis . The "blue" cones have the highest sensitivity and are mostly found outside the fovea, leading to some distinctions in the eye's blue perception."

 

This is a very interesting reply. Possible!

 

I don't think I made it clear enough in my original post that ALL of us experienced the same thing at the same time (two others.)

 

Anyone else have a hypothesis?

Edited April 12, 2012 by Sellsword

[Iggy]

It was slightly overcast. All of a sudden, all I could see was white, and then suddenly red. It was white for a half second then red for another half second.

Here is a white, then red, meteor flash,

 

 

The strange thing is that it wasn't like a flash of light like someone setting the flash of their camera off in your eye, it was more like someone put a white sheet of paper in front of my eyes and then a red one. All of my friends agree with this statement.

Being overcast might explain why you couldn't determine the light's source -- why it filled your field of vision.

 

 

Or... if you prefer the conspiratorial, perhaps you drove through a beam of ionizing radiation.