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Crazy Bad Electrical Interference Experience


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Detected an unexplored alpine area last night using only my pinpointer; a mountainous area close to home, hiked in and detected above the tree line. Skies were cloudy with darker clouds moving in but no thunderstorms. No overhead nor underground electrical wires in the area. No antennas anywhere nor engines nor even a road within 2 miles. And no cell phone on me (cell phone and satellite phone was in my backpack, which was about 40 feet from me at the time. Not likely any military jets/ aircraft in range either (those do fly over but no jet noise was heard all evening). So why the detector acted as it did perplexes me and kind of alarms me too if honest about it. I wonder if the detector detected electricity in the skies? Is that possible? I searched online but the info is too generic. When skies got darker off to the west is when the detector went absolutely nuts. As if I'd walked into a vault with metal on all sides of me. Was doing great for about 2 hours, no issues at all other than coming across signs of grizzly activity. Then something very odd happened. My Garrett Pro-Pointer AT started going crazy -- I was kneeling on wet tundra moss, with my gloved hand (neoprene material) in frigid cold glacial runoff, detecting on submerged quartz veins and getting a signal, a definitive hit type alarm. Then, under 20 seconds later the signal was lost.

I stood up and when I did so, holding the detector out from my waist, with an extended arm, pointed at nothing other than the hillside opposite of me across the tiny creek, the pinpointer began sounding nonstop, I mean nonstop yet nothing 3 feet in every direction. I powered it down then turned it back on. Same thing. I tried to remedy it via button presses to reset it but still same crazy nonstop alarming and so, looking up at the skies it provoked some concern as to perhaps my detector detecting conductivity in the skies overhead, which at that high elevation (4500 ft) meant I was a lightning rod, and so I headed back. Without stopping to check the pinpointer along the route. Back at the truck I turned it on and it was behaving normally again. The nonstop crazy wild beeping was gone. I tested it on the controls (nonmetallic items then metallic items) at the truck and it behaved fine/ normally as it was prior to that incident. Am totally at a loss as to what happened and why.  

Does anyone have any clue or idea even as to what this may have been due to?

In the event other details are needed, clouds pretty much blanketed the skies in all directions; darker clouds to the west were perhaps just 2 to 5 miles distance. Lighter to grayish clouds overhead and in other directions. No wires/ human developments of any kind for at least 15 miles to the south and 40 miles to the west and nothing but alpine wilderness the other two directions for thousands of miles. No highway just a rough gravel road so no engines nor CB radios within however many miles. I'd dunked my boots earlier so was barefoot at the time and had no metal on me nor anywhere near me, the digging shovel was about 8 feet from me. Just me and the glacial water and the mountains.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

A few hours of online research and a series of texts with a fellow sciences buff has me thinking -- but not with any certainty -- that it might be a case of the detector having detected electrical currents in the air/ positively charged streamers emerging from my body in response to negative charged particles in the dark storm clouds overhead. And I wasn't paying attention to the skies. And because I was in a gully, I wasn't the tallest object on the mountain thank goodness, yet was emitting positive charges, so it makes sense that a sophisticated detector such as that would have the sensitivity to pick up ionized air.   

What is interesting is just prior to that crazy alarming, I'd been tucked down, chest to knees position, and head to chest, just to get the detector submerged to test some float. Well, I learned that is the very same position that is advised for mitigating risk of being struck by lightning when in an area outdoors that offers no protection.

I'm still investigating it but will be modifying my habits regardless of the findings. Have learned we're at extremely high risk of being hit by lightning when have a detector in hand, even on the bluebird days with no clouds, especially when on a beach or near/ in water.

P.S.

I have ordered a "lightning detector" unit which is very low cost ($35). It alarms when the atmospheric conditions pose a threat for being struck by lightning from x distance -- a worthly device for any outdoorsman to have, especially those of us with metal rods in hand. 

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