Here's an example where discernment helps us not embarrass ourselves:

https://twitter.com/InvestigateEar1/status/1763596303840227381

Gotta agree, this video is pretty freaky on first view. What's really happening: Lightning storms mess with camera sensors big time. Those green beams? Just camera glitches when lightning's electromagnetic whack hits. The cheap Chinese CMOS sensors that's likely in these home security/Ring-style cameras get overloaded with the static electricity from the air in the thunderstorms and freak out. A lightning flash bombards the camera's sensor with a sudden surge of electromagnetic energy, causing it to misread the scene and create visual artifacts, which become especially pronounced when the lightning flashes. and spit out those green streaks instead of a clear shot. Nature's raw power just throwing tech a curveball.

But could it be this?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01139-z

No. The NATURE article details a ground-breaking experiment where intense laser pulses created ionized air channels on a Swiss mountain, successfully guiding lightning over distances, hinting at futuristic lightning protection methods. So, while the article shows how we might one day direct lightning with science, the green beams in your image are just common camera quirks (again, CMOS sensors are pretty shit in terms of performance), not this high-tech weather wizardry.

For example, Sony is still rocking CMOS sensors, but they're not your garden-variety ones; they're back-illuminated and stacked, giving them an edge in hoovering up light and speed-processing the data. Their cameras are so good, so ground-breakingly good that the recent movie THE CREATORS was recently filmed with one. Six lbs! But it's important to note: cameras packing this technology aren't selling for the $145 USD or whatever that people picking up Ring cameras or other cheap security cam solutions.

Anyway. This is kinda why GAW is moderated as strictly as it is. The mod logs are public, you can see them in the sidebar. GAW doesn't get touched much, lately. We're just humming along. But, this post is hopefully a good explanation about how sometimes the mods do get involved in something.

Thanks, <3 frogs