Out of the Blue

by FRIEDMAN, JOHN

• ISBN13: 9780385341165
• ISBN10: 0385341164
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2009-05-19
• Publisher: Delta

Summary

The odds of being hit by lightning each year are only about 1 in 750,000 in the U.S. And yet this rare phenomenon has inspired both fear and fascination for thousands of years. In this groundbreaking, brilliantly researched book, journalist John S. Friedman probes lightning's scientific, spiritual, and cultural roots. Blending vibrant history with riveting first-hand accounts of those who have clashed with lightning and lived to tell about it,Out of the Bluecharts an extraordinary journey across the ages that explores our awe and dread in the face of one of nature's most fearsome spectacles. Herman Melville called it "God's burning finger." The ancient Romans feared it as the wrath of God. Today we have a more scientific understanding, so why our eternal fascination with lightning?Out of the Blueattempts to understand this towering force of nature, exploring the changing perceptions of lightning from the earliest civilizations through Ben Franklin's revolutionary experiments to the hair-raising adventures of storm chasers like David Hoadley, who's been chronicling extreme weather for half a century. And Friedman describes one of the most treacherous rescues ever attempted in American mountain climbing. Friedman profiles a Virginia ranger who was struck by lightning seven timesand dubbed the human lightning rodalong with scores of others who tell astonishing tales of rescue and survival. And he charts lightning's profound, life-altering effects on the emotional and spiritual lives of its victims. Combining captivating fact with thrilling personal stories,Out of the Bluetells a remarkable true tale of fate and coincidence, discovery and divine retribution, science and superstition. As entertaining as it is informative, it is a book for outdoor adventurers, sports enthusiasts, science and weather buffs, nature lovers, and anyone who has ever been awed or frightened by the sight of lightning. From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

The producer of the Oscar-winning documentary Hotel Terminus, John S. Friedman has written for the New York Times and other publications, and contributes regularly to The Nation. The editor of The Secret Histories, he lives in Connecticut.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

An Awesome Flame


Everybody's afraid of lightning. Maybe it's built into the genes. It's a primal fear.
—DR. MARTIN UMAN

Lightning descends upon the American landscape in fiery arcs across the Great Plains on lonely summer nights and in brilliant streaks over the Rocky Mountains on lazy afternoons. It's also embedded in our oldest myths.

The stars are the campfires of the dead, and when we die, the great Thunderbird, lightning flashing from its eyes, carries our souls to the Milky Way. According to another Native legend, the Sun, father of twin boys, gave them magic arrows—lightning that strikes crooked and lightning that strikes straight. One day, the twins heard rumbling like the sound of an earthquake. It was the wake of the giant Yeitso3, who had smelled their scent. "How shall I kill them?" the giant wondered. He fired four arrows at the boys, but they missed.

Then the boy named Born of Water shot his own arrow and hit Yeitso. And the boy named Monster Slayer shot his arrow and it killed the giant. Afterward, the twins slayed other monsters with their magical arrows, and they made a huge thunderstorm sweep across the land. When the storm ended, a place called the Grand Canyon existed where once other terrible creatures had lived.

Memories of the indiscriminate power and terrible fascination of lightning have remained with me since childhood. When I rode on horseback in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Northern New Mexico—the ancestral home of the Apaches, the Navajos, and the Pueblo Indians—thunderbolts flashed and crackled around me, and I feared I would never return home. The drama of the never-ending Southwestern sky and its storms—absent in the Northeast, where I have lived most of my life—shaped me in ways I am still exploring.

Ever since, I've wondered about the mysteries of lightning. What causes lightning, and what attracts and repels it? How can we protect against lightning, and when is it most dangerous? Why would one person walking in a field be struck and killed by lightning during a storm while his companion walks away unharmed? What happens physically to someone after being  struck?

In his great novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder observes that most "occasions of human woe had never been quite fit for scientific examination. They had lacked what our good savants were later to call proper control." As he ponders the collapse of the Bridge of San Luis Rey, which killed several travelers in eighteenth-century Peru, Wilder's alter ego in the novel, Brother Juniper, collects "thousands of little facts and anecdotes and testimonies" to try to learn "why God had settled upon that person and upon that day for His demonstration of wisdom."

Lightning, too, was most often considered in earlier periods of history to be a pure act of God, beyond scientific explanation. Today, the discoveries of science and medicine have altered our perspectives far beyond Brother Juniper's imaginings.

Still, being struck inevitably raises existential questions about life and death, destiny and divine retribution. What did I do to deserve this? What should I do now? After all, when lightning strikes, there is no human cause. Believing that the testimony of survivors would yield the "thousands of little facts and anecdotes" underlying the human dimension of lightning, I set out on a journey to record their stories. Their accounts reveal a remarkable blend of willful choice and random coincidence, science and superstition. They tell of heroism, pain, hope, and sacrifice. Above all, they tell of their own inspiring spiritual changes.

At least forty-four people were killed by lightning in the United States in 2007. The reported number is lower than the actual number because some deaths due to lightning are not recorded as such. Lightning is the second-leadi

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Excerpted from Out of the Blue: A History of Lightning: Science, Superstition, and Amazing Stories of Survival by John Friedman
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