Now the thing to be worried about is St. Elmo's Fire... I have read some
strange things on this phenomenon, including a seasoned aircarrier pilot
seeing a floating ball of blue light which passed right through him..

Had an interesting run-in with St. Elmo's Fire about 50 years ago, Lockheed
P2V, Straights of Taiwan (OK, "Formosa" then), night. Creepy feeling.
Something's wrong. Scarey. What the hell is happening. Spooky -- for no
apparent reason. Sudenly fingers of blueish "flame" sticking out from all
external sharp things like windshield wipers, etc. Looked out at props and
they were quite invisible but there was an stationery ring of "fire" where the
prop tips were. There was a whole large number of pointy "flames" sticking out
from this apparently "stationary" discharge ring.

Radios got worse and worse as the minutes went by. Radio chief back aft reacehd
up to do something to a knife switch relatred to out trailing wire antenna. He
got it. Bang! Apparently down his fingers and out his earphones. POW!
Radios now OK. Poor chief was understandably stunned. Crewmwn backl aft said
a ball of "electrrical-looking fire" made 2-3 trips for and aft in the tail
section of plane -- scaring the **** out of all observers -- but otherwise no
harm. Radios proceeded to get worse again, Chief gritted his teeth, stuck his
finger close to switch again. BAM! Radios again OK. If ever a person
deserved the Congressional Medal, Chief's it.

Why the creepy feeling at the start of all this? Wiser heads told me later
that as the plane (and its contents) built up an increasingly large static
electric charge, every hair on one's body stands at attention. Like a kid
leaning on a science classroom's van DeGraff generator.

Consider a wooden boat. They rarely get Saint Elmos's stuff -- and that's
often enough. All sharp things emit this glow. Every hair on every rope.
Every line is glowing, All sharp fittings have this aurora. combine that with
the creepy feeling mentioned, can you imagine the effect on a bunch of
illiterate, superstitious, far-from-home sailors? A whole pile of instant
conversions. As is said, there are no athiests in a foxhole, there are
probably damn few athiests on a boat with a bad case of Saint Elmo's Fire.

Quent