Unexplained bright flash of light inside house

[mammoth13]

Last night I was awoken by what seemed like an extremely bright flash of light. I sat up and saw another bright flash of light just outside my bedroom that seemed to originate just down the hall. I was worried there was an electrical short so I ran out and nothing. I thought maybe I imagined it all since it was 3:30 AM.

I checked some of my cameras and my outside porch camera definitely saw it too as well as 3 other outside cameras. The light though did not originate from outside. After experiencing this I researched it online and found a ton of other people with very similar encounters.

What could this be? I am going to share a link to the video from my front porch. You can clearly see the first flash and then 5 seconds later you can see the second one reflect on the car. the second one seems to have originated somewhere else in the house.

 

[Filip Larsen]

Welcome to PF.

We have had a similar discussion that sound similar to what you have experienced:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...harge-cause-vision-to-see-white-flash.955250/

 

[Borek]

Around New Year people play with fireworks?

 

[anorlunda]

Meteors burning up in the sky light things up. I once "saw" one so bright that it was like the light of a full moon for a second. Shadows were plainly visible. I put the word saw in quotes because I was looking down, not up.

 

[Rive]

You can clearly see the first flash

Extract some still images from the vid: it seems possible to have the position of the first flash identified based on the light strips visible.

Ps.: on second thought, I think it'll be one of your LED lamps - and a dusty or bugous (I mean physical bugs here!) switch somewhere. An old filament bulb would just shrug off any such switch malfunction (and the malfunction would just burn itself out promptly), but these high efficiency LEDs may make visible fuss.

 

[Lnewqban]

Welcome, @mammoth13 !

Are you able to locate the source of the light from the projected shadows through the glass?

 

[mammoth13]

I have tried to reproduce these results with any combination of lights inside the house and can't. Also, all lights are led in my house so no filaments. The first flash was so bright it immediately woke me up. I thought somebody just shined a bright flash light in my face from inches away.

The second flash 5 seconds later, I was fully awake and sitting up and saw the reflection of it off the wall. To me, it looked like an electrical spark or strobe light coming from closer to the ground level. I thought maybe there was a short and my house was catching on fire.

I ran out of my room and nothing. There was never a noise, smoke, smell, burn mark, or any signs of an electric arch. Light from my bedroom is not visible through the front door so I cant explain how the first flash lit up my room, went through the front door to my porch and lit up a spot in my backyard. Here is the video of my backyard.

You can see the flash on the grass on the right side between the two trees. This happened at the exact same time as the first flash. This is driving me nuts. Can static electricity inside the home produce this large of a flash?

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Could it be that there was a sudden electromagnetic pulse which triggered the lights (possibly more than one at the same time) temporarily, either directly by inducing a current in the light power supply, or indirectly by triggering some switching circuit? Such a pulse could perhaps be due to a surge in the power supply, or lightning somewhere. Modern LED lighting would be much more sensitive to such things than old incandescent lighting, and much faster to respond.

It could even be triggered by a meteor; many years ago I saw multiple bright Perseids within only a few seconds of each other, and also definitely seemed to hear each one (a sort of hiss) as it passed, which seemed impossible. I later decided it might be possible that the sound came from nearby metal scrap, or possibly even the metal arms of my spectacles, which had responded in some way to electromagnetic emissions from the meteor.

 

[Lnewqban]

It happened with the power to the light fixture turned off.
That may be due to the LED drawing power from somewhere (in reverse due to leakage), or receiving changing voltage due to defective connections or switches, and slowly charging up an internal capacitor.
A professional electrician could determine the actual cause, and prevent future dangerous problems, like overheating of wires or connections.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

From the video, the initial flash was very short, showing up at full brightness only for two frames (although it was preceded by a couple of frames showing a partial flash). Frames seem to be 30 per second, so that makes the flash duration between a 30th and a 10th of a second. (You can use comma and period on the keyboard to step back or forward). The total amount of energy was therefore probably very small (and fortunately not enough to do any damage). It seems quite possible to me that it could have been due to a brief current induced in the low-voltage circuitry powering LED lighting, possibly in more than one room at the same time. Or if the lighting is controlled by an electronic switch rather than a physical one, it is possible that an induced current temporarily enabled the switch.

The second flash could have been a much smaller version of the same effect, where instead of many lights responding, only one minor light responded. It is however interesting that the reflection in the car seems to show a different source location from the first flash, rather than showing the second flash to be in some way a subset of the first flash.

One possible trigger could be an electrical appliance with a high level of inductance being turned on or off somewhere nearby, or some sort of electrical ignition apparatus being used to generate a spark.

 

[mfb]

From the video, the initial flash was very short, showing up at full brightness only for two frames (although it was preceded by a couple of frames showing a partial flash). Frames seem to be 30 per second, so that makes the flash duration between a 30th and a 10th of a second.

Check the top of the pillars, there are two components in the first flash. The big one is two frames long, the weaker one lasts for two extra frames (can't tell if it starts at the same time, brightness difference is too large). There might even be a third component lasting a few more frames beyond that, based on the ground.