One of the optical displays reported by E. Strand may be of special significance as a tentative bridge across the wide gulf that exists between the UFO and scientific communities.
Two women reported an unusual, colored, intermittent light display that slowly moved over two hours of observation made from a remote cabin in Norway in the post-midnight hours of August 3, 1991. The sky was clear until the end of the observation period, when a few clouds moved in. The key point about this display is that while there was no local thunderstorm activity, there was an electrical storm in the direction of the display, but the storm was 120 kilometers away. For decades, it has been conventional scientific wisdom that all of the visible electrical activity of such storms is within and below the clouds, that in this case would have been below the observers' horizon.
Recent developments in the observations and theory of electrical activity in the high atmosphere (mesosphere and low ionosphere) demonstrate that this conventional wisdom is in error (see, for instance, Pasko et al., 1996; Sentman & Wescott, 1995). Some of the reports of observations in the Hessdalen area could be related to phenomena that occur above storms, up to an altitude of nearly 100 kilometers, well above the observers' horizon. This electrical activity goes by the names of "blue jets," " red sprites," and "short-lived elves." There have in fact been sporadic reports of these phenomena decades ago, but these reports were dismissed by the "experts." Now these events have been captured on film and video.
This example can serve to remind us of the continual development and change that occurs in all fields of scientific knowledge, and of the potential advantages of open communication between the purported experts and interested amateur observers.