Bioluminescent Barn Owls ???

[bbbuck]

Good grief. Black helicopters.

[Chameleon]

Black helicopters?

I don’t believe in aliens. We are alone.

There are high ranking people in government who believe there is a secret program studying crashed ufos. There are also high ranking people in government who believe the Russians have a science fiction weapon they are using against our diplomats. IMO, the UFO recovery program and Havana Syndrome are figments of people’s imaginations.

I don’t believe there are living pterodactyls either. What we saw in the ‘80s was surely a crane or heron. We were right by a river, and headlights back then weren’t that great. The fact that we imagined it to look like a pterodactyl probably explains why people report seeing them occasionally.

But I find the coincidences of my research entertaining.

OTOH, I’m quite certain that the phenomenon of glowing birds is real.

The guy who wrote the book on raptors in Texas took my story seriously. He didn’t seem to find it implausible at all. Maybe he was just being nice? But he seemed generally interested in exploring it and learning more.

So back to the most likely explanations…

Has anyone seen a Southern Jack o Lantern mushroom glowing in Central Texas?

Anyone seen any other kinds of bioluminescence, either fungal or plant based?

[RiverRat00]

Must have been a beautiful sight to see.

Long live the bioluminescent Lechuza..

[BigRed323]

i do believe we have a record for the shortest answer ever left by riflebowpistol. 😁

😂

[Chameleon]

I had not heard of Lechuza.

But that ole witch better look out! I ain’t afraid and I got a thermal scope!

Not afraid to shoot a pterodactyl either.

Or even a barn owl if I see one glowing.

Here are some pictures of glowing mushrooms from college station….

[Landrover]

Hope it all works out, sorry I can’t read that much

......in for the win!!!

[Chameleon]

I went back to the site this weekend.

It was not a barn owl.

It was a Blue Heron.

Much more to come on this. But I believe I have solved this.

I believe blue herons have feathers that glow under blue lights. Just nobody has proved this yet. Maybe it is like flamingos, and it depends on diet.

Most importantly, I have made many discoveries that amphibians have recently been discovered to glow under blue lights.

Combine this with the unique conditions in which I saw this. It was the "blue hour" when all the Sun's light except blue is swallowed by the Ozone layer. It was moonless in a rural area. I've confirmed via a study in Nature that this is a unique lighting situation in which only the blue wavelength is in the sky (normally washed out by other wavelengths.)

It was a Blue Heron.

And I am going to prove it.

And all the reports of 'glowing pterodactyls are in fact, Herons and similar birds that can reflect certain wavelengths to attract fish/amphibians. We just can't normally see it because we see too many wavelengths, and it gets washed out.

[Chameleon]

This is from the book "The Birds of Long Island" from 1844. The glowing Blue Heron phenomenon is documented in detail here.

[Chameleon]

More readable.

When I went to the site this weekend, I jumped a Blue Heron on the way in, and he took the same flight path.

[Chameleon]

This article confirms the unique 'blue light' conditions in which the sighting occurred.

[Chameleon]

Check out this video which shows how a roadkilled owl glows under UV light (especially check the second half of video)

[Chameleon]

This article shows that amphibians glow, humans just haven't been able to see it.

I suspect we are going to discover that the blue heron glows under blue lights the same way. Its breast feathers can reflect blue light and attract prey. But humans cannot see it, except under blue light. Which only happens about 45 minutes after sunset on a moonless night in a rural area with no artificial lights to wash out the blue light effect.