Word: spruceness
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...many others as well. Reading Salisbury's book, Entomologist Philip S. Callahan and his associate, R.W. Mankin, were struck by the similarity between the movements of the UFOS and the actions of insect swarms. Their conclusion, after some painstaking research: the Utah objects were probably moths known as spruce budworms, illuminated by a common atmospheric phenomenon known as St. Elmo's fire...
...test whether insects could also be set aglow, Callahan and Mankin in their lab generated electric fields comparable to those produced during storms. They then confined within the fields several species of insects, including predatory stinkbugs and spruce budworms. The results were invariably the same: the bugs, consisting, as the scientists note, of an excellent dielectric (the exoskeleton) surrounding an electrolyte (the body fluids), displayed brilliantly colored flares from such external points as their antennae, leg joints and jaws. Write Callahan and Mankin: "There is absolutely no doubt that, given the right weather conditions, nature can produce a high enough...
Strong supporting evidence came from U.S. Forest Service records, which showed that there were in fact several severe spruce budworm infestations in forests near Roosevelt just before the UFO outbreaks. Thus, the budworm moths, having feasted on the trees and flying in well-defined swarms that may have measured miles across, could have been on nocturnal migrations when the people of Roosevelt began seeing those strange, dancing lights. Indeed, as the moths hovered and blinked overhead, while trying to escape atmospheric electric fields on certain stormy nights, they might well have resembled what the scientists call a great "free-floating...
...extends much farther than the eye can see: a great tapestry pf shimmering blue lakes and islands forested with silver birch, black spruce and majestic red pines. Eagles and ospreys wheel overhead, while moose and wolves roam the woods as they did in the days of the 17th century voyageurs. Crystal-clear lakes teem with enough trout and walleyed pike to make even the fishing novice feel like the compleat angler. At dusk the call of the loon is heard...
...July, cutting visibility at times to less than 300 yds. Motorists who left the windows of parked cars open near Presque Isle had to beat away the insects to get back behind the wheel. Since then, the moths have dropped eggs in massive quantities, and tiny quarter-inch-long spruce budworms are now eating their way through 150 million acres of forests in Maine and southeastern Canada. Evergreen spruce and fir trees stand brown and naked in the summer...