Red Lights

[Hunt Stoddard]

Weird hovering red lights over Keaukaha at New Years. Several odd reddish lights would hover, move then stop, and eventually move off and blink out. In order of likelihood, I'm thinking flares on parachutes, everyone's new Christmas gift drones, or .... aliens. Should I start checking for pods?

[Big_Island]

Just wishing for a new year! Chinese Wishing Lanterns!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-White-Paper-C...SwhcJWGEAg

[Chas]

While I'm sure they look great, I can't understand why anyone would do this. From the description: "Light your lantern, make a wish and watch it go up into the evening sky".

Setting something on fire, then letting it fly wherever... Hmmmm... I guess my wish would be that one of them wouldn't burn someone's house down.

[Big_Island]

How many times have you heard of these lighting anyones house on fire? Seriously? Fireworks are far more dangerous!
Probably, Mr.Hunt reported these over Keaukaha because they were over the ocean?

[bananahead]

fwiw.... talking about these lanterns starting fires maybe... thats what Japan wanted during WWII, with their similar 'Fu-Go'
they had balloons with bombs and incendiary devices attached to the balloons and let them drift towards the US West Coast and even farther inland....

"...From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9300 fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were ineffective as weapons: causing only six deaths (from one single incident) and a small amount of damage.
The Japanese designed two types of balloons. The first was called the "Type B Balloon" and was designed by the Japanese Navy. It was 9 m (30 ft) in diameter and consisted of rubberized silk. The type B balloons were sent first and mainly used for meteorological purposes. The Japanese used them to determine the possibility of the bomb-carrying balloons reaching North America.[3] The second type was the bomb-carrying balloon. Japanese bomb-carrying balloons were 10 m (33 ft) in diameter and, when fully inflated, held about 540 m3 (19,000 cu ft) of hydrogen. Their launch sites were located on the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu....
launched by Japan during World War II. A hydrogen balloon with a load varying from a 15 kg (33 lb) antipersonnel bomb to one 12-kilogram (26 lb) incendiary bomb and four 5 kg (11 lb) incendiary devices attached, it was designed as a cheap weapon intended to make use of the jet stream over the Pacific Ocean and drop bombs on American and Canadian cities, forests, and farmland.
Japan released the first of these bomb-bearing balloons on November 3, 1944. They were found in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Michigan[4] and Iowa, as well as Mexico and Canada....."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon

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save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha

[Kapoho Joe]

quote:

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Originally posted by bananahead

fwiw.... talking about these lanterns starting fires maybe... thats what Japan wanted during WWII, with their similar 'Fu-Go'
they had balloons with bombs and incendiary devices attached to the balloons and let them drift towards the US West Coast and even farther inland....

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Six killed in Oregon by Japanese bomb

In Lakeview, Oregon, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children are killed while attempting to drag a Japanese balloon out the woods. Unbeknownst to Mitchell and the children, the balloon was armed, and it exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They were the first and only known American civilians to be killed in the continental United States during World War II. The U.S. government eventually gave $5,000 in compensation to Mitchell’s husband, and $3,000 each to the families of Edward Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford, and Richard and Ethel Patzke, the five slain children.

The explosive balloon found at Lakeview was a product of one of only a handful of Japanese attacks against the continental United States, which were conducted early in the war by Japanese submarines and later by high-altitude balloons carrying explosives or incendiaries. In comparison, three years earlier, on April 18, 1942, the first squadron of U.S. bombers dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Kobe, and Nagoya, surprising the Japanese military command, who believed their home islands to be out of reach of Allied air attacks. When the war ended on August 14, 1945, some 160,000 tons of conventional explosives and two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan by the United States. Approximately 500,000 Japanese civilians were killed as a result of these bombing attacks.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-histo...anese-bomb

[Obie]

"Hawaii's governor on Tuesday signed a law immediately banning sky lanterns—miniature, illuminated hot-air balloons that rise when a wax fuel cell is lighted—prompted by concerns they might start fires.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, signed the statewide ban on "aerial luminaries," which are increasingly popular at weddings across the U.S. Violators face as much as a year in prison and potential fines of $1,000."

[Big_Island]

Are you guys really serious? This is about tissue paper and a small wax candle. It wasn't a bomb! I heard some fireworks last night that could of exploded a small home. At 2am I still couldn't see more 50 feet in front of me because of all the damn firework smoke... Different strokes for Different folks I guess..

[Kapoho Joe]

Time for us to be limited to just firecrackers like Oahu.

[PunaMauka2]

Enjoyed the variously distant flashes and celebratory sounds round about the Volcano area just after midnight. Duration and intensity didn't seem too much to me in this area. Sure was a calm starry night.