Talk:St. Elmo's fire

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The link to Helena leads to a disambiguation page where no option makes sense in this context. I strongly suspect that this Helena is none other than Helen of Troy who, after all, was supposed to be sister to Castor and Pollux. But I do not know it for sure (I would have fixed it otherwise myself). --eiaccb 10:10, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

No one is St. Elmo!

Are you sure that St Elmo is Erasmus of Formiae and not Pedro González Telmo (or Pedro Telmo), also a patron of mariners?

Contents

[edit] Corpusants?

"References to St. Elmo's Fire, often known as "corposants" or "corpusants" from the Spanish Cuerpos Santos (Holy Bodies), can be found in the works of Julius Caesar, Pliny the Elder, Herman Melville, and Antonio Pigafetta's journal of his voyage with Ferdinand Magellan."

I haven't checked the sources mentioned, but if the term "corpusants" appears in works of Julius Caesar and Pliny the Elder, the claim that the term comes from Spanish is a rather misleading half-truth. There was no such thing as Spanish back then. It doesn't seem impossible to me that the term dates back that early, but the origin would be Latin (corpus sanctus?) rather than Spanish. EldKatt 19:06, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I wrote the Latin Wikipedia stub on St. Elmo's Fire. (It's corpus sanctum btw; "corpus" is neuter.) It seems that there is a confusion in the reading of the sentence you quoted. There are certainly references to St. Elmo's Fire in Pliny, but not under the name "corpus sanctum" (nor "St. Elmo's fire", of course). He describes them under the Greek names mentioned in the English article: Helena, and Castor and Pollux. I'm not sure I remember if I read about it in Caesar. The Romans don't seem to have had an overarching term for the phenomenon in general—at least, I wasn't able to find one. —Muke Tever 04:40, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the nice info. Anyhow, upon more careful reading, it's rather obvious that the passage does not at all state that the Latin sources used "corpusants". My comment thus falls flatly to the ground. Still, though, it got me fooled once... EldKatt 21:34, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] St. Elmo's fire in film

The 1970s film Hindenburg portrayed St. Elmo's fire racing around the lounge of that airship as it passed through a cloud, to the dismay of some passengers, who feared explosion. Elmos fires may occure on common household products such as cats,dog,and other household pets.

[edit] Where is St. Elmo's fire seen?

My professor once saw it while he was in the cockpit of a FedEx plane. He said it came up from the nose of the plane, over the windshield. It should maybe be added to the list of possible places where it is seen in addition to cattle horns and ship masts. Yoink23 01:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

You can search some neat pictures on airliners.net by using the tag "elmo's" One of my favorites is this one http://www.airliners.net/photo/Unknown/Airbus-A340-642/1024173&photo_nr=2&prev_id=1055823&next_id=0858785&size=L which was taken onboard of an Iberia A340. Would be very nice, if someone with more knowledge could provide that picture in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.134.100.194 (talk) 23:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

And another remark, I once was able to see St. Elmo's fire (Helena) myself in the cockpit of a Condor A320 while crossing the austrian alps overflying some thunderstorms. It was absolutely impressive as also your hair and nails would lite up in a strange greenish tone! Absolutely great! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.134.100.194 (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

St. Elmo's fire was witnessed on one of the B-29 bombers en-route to Nagasaki. It was the atomic bomb mission, but not the plane carrying the bomb. raptor 12:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect quotation method

"Everything was in flames, the sky with lightning, the water with luminous particles (bioluminescence), and even the very masts were pointed with a blue flame."

"Bioluminescence" is not - as it might occur to a common reader - part of the quotation but an addition. What's your opinion: a) Delete it or b) put it into a form with no room for misinterpretation? Walter Schulz (unregistered) 13:07, 19 January 2006 (CET)

I put it in square brackets, using the nowiki thingies. There's got to be a more elegant way, but it works. --Allen 02:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)1281 was the first accourence of such
I think that's a good way of doing that. Xhin Give Back Our Membership! 11:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Any chance the picture could be replaced by a photo?

I agree. Here are some results from Google:

http://inflightphotos.com/st-elmos-fire.html

http://www.jpgloverart.com/Pages/PhenomenPagesFolder/StElmoBlue.html

http://www.jpgloverart.com/Pages/PhenomenPagesFolder/StElmoI.html

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Unknown/Airbus-A340-642/1024173&photo_nr=2&prev_id=1055823&next_id=0858785&size=L —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.134.100.194 (talk) 23:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Contact

Just to clarify, you can touch St. Elmo's Fire right?--68.88.232.113 01:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "References in Popular Culture"

What a ridiculous, listcrufty, fancrufty section: I removed it. It serves absolutely no purpose unless you are of a very odd trainspotter mentality. Gsd2000 00:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I made some organisational changes

And tried to make the first few sentences more readable by those who do not posess a PHD in both Physics and Meteorology. Just a heads up. Xhin Give Back Our Membership! 11:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggesting a Partial Re-Write

The entire article is rather poorly written. Here are some of the major things that need addressed:

  • The Observation and Scientific Explanation sections are significantly lacking in both relevant content and notable sources.
  • The Historical Observations and In Fiction sections, apart from having inconsistent section titles, are far too list-like to be called encyclopedic.
Split "In Fiction" into two separate sections, "In Literature" and "In Popular Culture". Rewrote the "In Literature" section using progressional argument (ie, re-ordered chronology and introduced discussion of changing views/conventions in literature over time with regard to St. Elmo's fire) to eliminate "list-like" nature of this section. Also added some lines to Moby Dick to provide more context with regard to omens, and to include the text's exact mention of "St. Elmo's flames".--Simyre 02:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


  • Calling the lines from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner a possible reference to St. Elmo's Fire sounds much like speculation without a notable source.
The only scholarly reference I could locate regarding the meaning of this section of Coleridge's poem is from an article by John Owen of University of South Carolina:
The "Death-Fires", the "Fire-Flags" and the Corposant in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Ower, John. Philological Quarterly, vol. 70 no. 2, p. 199-218. 1991
A comment on the article is listed at http://virtual.park.uga.edu/eng3k/spring01/assignments/classbibs.html toward the end of the page (search page for "Ower"). The article discusses the contradictory interpretations that accompany these lines. I suggest that this supports the argument to strike this mention as 'tangential' to this Wiki article.
--Simyre 01:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The reference to the comic Tintin in Tibet has no source or evidentiary quotations. Either this reference needs to be removed or expanded to include more relevant information than simply saying a reference to St. Elmo's Fire exists.
Now under new section title, "In Popular Culture", to help explain the trivial nature of this listing.--Simyre 02:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

So far, I have rewritten the initial definition and included a source for distinguishing Ball Lightning from St. Elmo's Fire because they are separate phenomena. One of the external links (http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/stelmo.htm) seems to contain much of the information that this article needs to be improved. I will attempt to incorporate more information from this text as well as improve upon the items listed above.  Rmaus  22:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)