Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Andrew K Fletcher on 28/11/2008 16:17:53
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Hi peoples something very strange happened to my wife and I while driving back from Torquay yesterday after taking the dogs for a walk. It started to rain. So what?-- I hear you say, it does that a lot in the UK. And I agree it certainly does rain a lot but this was very different. Two magnificent rainbows appeared side by side right in front of the car and we drove right through the end of one of the rainbows.
This is a first for both of us. The road was coloured in a line in front of us, almost like the road had changed into all the colours of the rainbow. It was one of those days you wished you had a camera.
It was truly spectacular.
When we were kids we used to play in the quarry and spray the hosepipe into the air to form a fine mist, this provided us with an artificial rainbow keeping us entertained for half an hour or so.
Hmm just remembered we used to collect phosphorous rocks and thrown them down the road when it was dark that was pretty amazing too come to think of it, anyways back on track.
Has anyone else experienced a rainbow touching down on top of them?
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This person looks like they've got their own personal rainbow...
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http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/gloim20.htm
But it's actually a "Brocken Spectre" which is primarily due to interference,
so it's not the same as a rainbow which is due to refraction (dispersion).
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Andrew YES....YES ....YES....I drove through one and mentioned it here in the forum but was told that that was not possible although I seen it with my own eyes.. shining right on my car as I passed through it and it was awesome because when I came out there was a second rainbow well ahead of me.. miles ahead.. so yes.. .. My kink is here somewhere I will find it!
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=7373.msg78171#msg78171
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Just read your posts Karen. Awesome, exactly what I saw, and nearly 52 years young this was a first for me. We saw the end of the huge rainbow directly in front of us and I was thinking to myself at the time how bright the small area was as we approached. Again dropping down to around 2-3 miles per hour, we noticed this rainbow was not moving further away but remaining in one location as if waiting for us to drive through it. The spectrum of colours was astonishing. There was no vehicle in front of us so spray could not account for the colours shimmering above the road as SophieCentaur suggested may have been the case.
I know this sounds like an illusion or some other strange explanation may fit it better but having lots of experience with rainbows and rain living in the UK for nearly 52 years this was a first for me. Up to that few minutes of pure ecstasy, I too believed it was impossible to reach the end of the rainbow. A day I shall remember for the rest of my life.
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A post from someone who did have a camera at the time she drove through a rainbow :)
Karen looks like we are not imagining things after all.
http://www.43things.com/things/view/229376/find-the-end-of-a-rainbow
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http://jenniverse.com/impossible%20things%20rainbow.html
This is well worth a read.
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Rainbows are circular. Where's the end?
Nice pics though.
The last picture I took of a rainbow was one that was entirely orange rather than the usual red through violet. Can anyone think why?
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The end was right in front of my wife and I as we drove through it. This rainbow was definitely a half circle and one end at least was on the ground changing the colour of the road with a fantastic light display exactly as portrayed in the cartoon account above and as seen in the car windscreen picture lighting up the ground where the rainbow appears to end. Karen and my wife saw the same effects and so have many more people. This is not the run of the mill rainbow we are all familiar with but a stationary rainbow that can be viewed and experienced as it is passed through. Had I not have seen it I would be doubtful too.
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Just read your posts Karen. Awesome, exactly what I saw, and nearly 52 years young this was a first for me. We saw the end of the huge rainbow directly in front of us and I was thinking to myself at the time how bright the small area was as we approached. Again dropping down to around 2-3 miles per hour, we noticed this rainbow was not moving further away but remaining in one location as if waiting for us to drive through it. The spectrum of colours was astonishing. There was no vehicle in front of us so spray could not account for the colours shimmering above the road as SophieCentaur suggested may have been the case.
I know this sounds like an illusion or some other strange explanation may fit it better but having lots of experience with rainbows and rain living in the UK for nearly 52 years this was a first for me. Up to that few minutes of pure ecstasy, I too believed it was impossible to reach the end of the rainbow. A day I shall remember for the rest of my life.
Thanks so much Andrew! It is good to at least find others who experienced the same thing.... It was awesome and like you I slowed down and even backed back up to see if my mind was really seeing it.. I was amazed when I pulled through ...I saw a second one several miles ahead and was baffled and not sure if it had moved.. so Thats why I backed back up I could still see it behind me so I backed back into it to watch the colors on my car again.. It was awesome and I did feel like I was seeing something unusual.... Maybe I should go back and find the treasure... LOL I know jut which place in the road it came down... right in front of some bushes that are still there! ...
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The last picture I took of a rainbow was one that was entirely orange rather than the usual red through violet. Can anyone think why?
If the sun was low in the sky (close to sunset /sunrise) the sunlight would have lost a lot of its blue content through Raleigh scattering, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering) the rainbow produced would have a reduced blue-violet content, i.e. be mostly red-orange. (If the sun was low in the sky the rainbow produced would have arced high in the sky). Also some digital cameras and films have a "warm" (orange) bias to give flattering skin tones, (an instant tan), which would distort how the colours of a rainbow were recorded.
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Got it in one; the picture was taken shortly afer dawn.
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Just read your posts Karen. Awesome, exactly what I saw, and nearly 52 years young this was a first for me. We saw the end of the huge rainbow directly in front of us and I was thinking to myself at the time how bright the small area was as we approached. Again dropping down to around 2-3 miles per hour, we noticed this rainbow was not moving further away but remaining in one location as if waiting for us to drive through it. The spectrum of colours was astonishing. There was no vehicle in front of us so spray could not account for the colours shimmering above the road as SophieCentaur suggested may have been the case.
I know this sounds like an illusion or some other strange explanation may fit it better but having lots of experience with rainbows and rain living in the UK for nearly 52 years this was a first for me. Up to that few minutes of pure ecstasy, I too believed it was impossible to reach the end of the rainbow. A day I shall remember for the rest of my life.
I have been thinking about this again.
The rainbow is a 'virtual' image. The Sun is behind you and the light is dispersed and internally reflected back to you via droplets which are in a cone around a line from the Sun and through your eyes (hence the circular appearance). Traveling directly away from the Sun will make the rainbow appear to be traveling along with you.
If you are traveling 'towards' one end of the bow then it would normally also appear to be moving. But if there is a changing gradient in the road (and this would have to be a rare / special set of circs) the apparent end could appear not to be changing its position as you see a different part of your personal circle in contact with the road. Presumably the effect gave up in the end - or else you should have had a spade with you!
You can get a rainbow which you can actually put your hand into if you have a garden spray and get the angles just right.
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My friend used to fly helicopters in the army and says that if you fly quite high, rainbows look like dounuts.
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My friend used to fly helicopters in the army and says that if you fly quite high, rainbows look like dounuts.
Fanny Craddock’s Doughnuts
Picture the scene, the fearful Fanny Craddock, Britain’s first celebrity chef with more make-up than Coco the clown,
puts finishing touches to some sticky doughnuts during a live transmission of a BBC regional news show.
As she pulls a tray out of the oven the studio presenter turns to camera and closes the item with the immortal [line]
“and if you're making these at home, I hope all your doughnuts look like Fanny’s”.
http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/tv/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10901404
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A hairy rainbow?
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RD priceless. Loved it :)
My friend used to fly helicopters in the army and says that if you fly quite high, rainbows look like dounuts.
Fanny Craddock’s Doughnuts
Picture the scene, the fearful Fanny Craddock, Britain’s first celebrity chef with more make-up than Coco the clown,
puts finishing touches to some sticky doughnuts during a live transmission of a BBC regional news show.
As she pulls a tray out of the oven the studio presenter turns to camera and closes the item with the immortal [line]
“and if you're making these at home, I hope all your doughnuts look like Fanny’s”.
http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/tv/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10901404
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This is amazing! It really excited me
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To summarise, the answer to the question is, actually NO, although it could look rather like it.
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Longing for the day that you get to see it for yourself :) Be nice if it was on your boat on the ocean changing the water into all the colours of the rainbow. If my wife and I hadn't seen it we would also still believe it was impossible. But there ya go.
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Me too Andrew!!!
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So pretty! [:o]
I love'em :]
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Longing for the day that you get to see it for yourself :) Be nice if it was on your boat on the ocean changing the water into all the colours of the rainbow. If my wife and I hadn't seen it we would also still believe it was impossible. But there ya go.
A rainbow is a well defined phenomenon. What you see is the result of light being internally reflected and dispersed inside water drops. It is a virtual image. The angle subtended by the bow is about 42 degrees from a line through your head from the Sun; it's a cone. That is what an actual rainbow is.
If you want to suggest that, suddenly, light behaved differently for you then I have to doubt you.
You may have seen another phenomenon or even misinterpreted what you saw. There are many other ways of producing a very pretty and striking optical spectrum but they are not rainbows.
Did you want Science to have been suspended, temporarily, for your experience or do you want a scientific explanation for what you saw?
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My wife and I saw a huge rainbow. 1 end of which was close by and was not moving aways as anticipated. we drove closer and eventually right through it at a snails pace. While within the very bright area, the road was coloured and there appeared to be a full spectrum of colours.
Miss interpreted what we saw? Kidding right? Might not have been a rainbow? Bahhhh Humbug
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The problem is: do you have an alternative explanation for how a rainbow is formed? This question strikes me as very relevant.
I could suggest that the spectrum you saw was formed, perhaps, on your windscreen. Did you get our of the car? Could you draw a diagram of the actual situation, including the Sun's direction?
Should I believe YOU or the evidence of my own frequent optical experiments and the eminent logic of the tried (and tested) description of rainbow formation?
Rainbows behave like rainbows - except for akf??? I don't think so..
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Hi. I'm from Hawaii and I'd like to say that I'm glad I found this message board discussing passing through a rainbow. I was recently at Discover.com message board where someone asked if it was possible to pass through a rainbow and most of the posters there discounted it saying that it was an impossibility. I did post something but now the link to that site has been replaced. Anyway, I want to add that I've also experienced passing through a rainbow twice. The first one was the most vivid. It was just an amazing experience seeing all the colors around me. I was driving downhill at that time and there was another car in front of me that passed through it first. The second time I experienced it was on the freeway. I know another person personally who claimed he has experienced it. So there, add me to the few (maybe many?)who have passed through a rainbow.
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It would appear that all the people who claim to have been at / near the end of a rainbow have been in cars. Does anyone actually claim to have walked to the end?
You see, for this to be the case, we should have to seriously rethink all of classical optics and question the operation of mirrors, lenses and prisms. Basically, none of these would operate in a predictable way. Is there any evidence of this?
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yup! great pictures, well i dont think it is possible to reach the end of the rainbows as they are circular shaped!
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We need to rethink what is happening here. There will undoubtedly be many more people who have walked through the end of a rainbow, just as all the people who were on foot were walking through the end of the rainbow we saw in Preston, Devon. From the car we could see the colours bathing the people and the road ahead of us, just as reported in the quote below, except we were in a car. And if you tink about it, vehicles travel grater distances than people on foot so are more likely to encounter this phenomenon.
http://forums.mokata.net/ar/t6327.htm
mole - February 29, 2008 01:29 AM (GMT)
I was standing out side my villa the other day after a sexy thunderstorm had gone through the mountains, I noticed there was a rainbow there.
I walked under it and I changed all different colours while walking through it.
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http://www.rainbowmaker.us/frcq.htm Firemen spray water and make a huge rainbow that people walk though on youtube.
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http://www.rainbowmaker.us/frcq.htm Firemen spray water and make a huge rainbow that people walk though on youtube.
There is nothing wrong with the idea of someone walking through 'your' rainbow. You see a rainbow which appears to hit the ground some way in front of you and other people can be seen / filmed walking around / through it. That is not the same as walking through your own bow.
The rainbow is nowhere in particular; it is a virtual image of the Sun, formed by each of the water droplets where you can see it and at a particular angle (same goes for the secondary rainbow, too). You might just as well state that you could walk through a mirror into the image of the room that you see 'behind it'. The room isn't there any more than the rainbow is ' there. They are both virtual images.
If you don't go along with that idea then you are denying the laws of optics and can't expect a mirror, lens or reflex camera to work reliably.
If, yet again, you want to explain a well established phenomenon in some special terms of your own then that is your privilege but, if your explanation does not extend to and explain all other phenomena, it is clearly lacking validity and you can't expect it to be accepted.
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http://www.rainbowmaker.us/frcq.htm Firemen spray water and make a huge rainbow that people walk though on youtube.
If you actually look at the pictures you will see that the rainbow is circular - symmetrical and each leg appears the same distance away (because the ground is more or less level and it's all green grass). You will also see the people walking around the field, in front of, in and behind the apparent rainbow, which terminates in an indeterminate region somewhere on the ground. Some of the people in shot are actually waving their arms, pointing at and describing the rainbow which they can see which is nowhere near the rainbow that the camera sees - it is their own, personal rainbow.
Have you noticed that a rainbow actually appears 'upside down'/ inside out. Blue light is refracted more than red light but the red band is towards the centre and the blue band is towards the inside. That is because the blue light that you see has come from raindrops which are further out. If the rainbow were a real 'projected' image, the blue band would be on the inside and the red band on the outside.
Someone else could be seeing red light from the same raindrop from which you are getting blue light.
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Got it Sophie, thanks. The colours on the floor we drove through were part of the circle of the rainbow and therefore could never be the end of the rainbow. But for us, we will remember it as the end of the rainbow if thats ok with you :)
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Yes is possible, it's easy to replicate what happened when you were driving. More than likely the cars in front of you were creating fine water droplets that extended the end of the rainbow on the horizon to a few feet in front of you. I've recreated this on many occasions when there was a good rainbow using a hosepipe set to fine spray. You need to get the positioning right but what you are actually doing is creating the conditions for the rainbow on the horizon to extend to you feet. If you get someone to stand in on the other side of the spray the rainbow colours distort their colour which proves that its close to you. Incidental, the person standing in front cant see the extended rainbow.
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JS,
The scenario you describe is very common and shows how we see what we want to see. The two 'ends' you see may appear to be at very different distances.
The distance where you think you see the bow is related to the objects in front of which it appears to end. The bow is virtual - it isn't really anywhere at all.
Traffic spray over the front of the car will make you think that is where the bow is because the front of the car is near you and apparently not obscuring the bow. Hence, you see it as very close. But you are no 'at it'.
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I registered just to say I am not surprised there is some scientific debate about this, and to provide my own testimony: I can agree with the eyewitnesses here that I was most certainly "at" the end of the rainbow, and did experience passing through multiple colors (very bright) while driving through it. We were in farmland on a remote country road, and saw the brilliant rainbow from a far distance. In agreement with the other posters, there was a second rainbow some distance away, but it was only a piece of a rainbow, as if broken, but nonetheless an interesting sight. As we were admiring it, we realized we might appear to pass under it since we were heading in that direction. As we got closer, we realized that we might actually approach, what appeared to be, the end of the rainbow. The end of the rainbow was quite large, roughly the size of the road itself, and was touching down directly on the road ahead of us, and having played with the rainbows a water hose is capable of making, I had thought such an objectified manifestation of a rainbow was impossible. I thought it might flea away, as it appears to do in smaller manifestations. But, indeed, it did not do this, and we were amazed when we began to pass through the foot of this rainbow. We did slow down, but I was not driving, so I don't know how fast, as there were cars behind us. The interior of the car became very bright, and it did, in fact, change colors all around us. I vividly remember my arm lighting up as though it were being shined upon by a sequence of colored lights. The entire experience was so elating and momentary that it is very difficult to describe the experience in detail, but the only way to describe it, is that it was like a bubble of incredible luminosity that changed the surfaces around you different colors.
If I could speculate how this occurs, I would like to begin by saying that I thought that merely having my eyes approach the -end- of the rainbow were impossible. As though I could only approach the center, like a hologram. Indeed, I did approach the end of the rainbow, like in a leprechaun myth. Secondly, I might remark that yes there was a light rain, and the conditions were very similar to the picture posted earlier in this thread (unknown whether it is legitimate or not, but it looked very much like that, although the rainbow itself was a bit more vivid and larger). Lastly, I want to iterate the fact that it illuminated my skin with different colors. It was enough colorization that my skin was another color completely.
How could this manifest? Why didn't it act like the optical illusion that I can produce with a mist? I suspect that if we thought about the fact that a rainbow is indeed the result of different colors of light being reflected (refracted) off of the atmosphere, then we can correctly claim that there are ROYGBV colors being casted -somewhere-. It must be that the rainbow we passed through was simply the location of the highest concentration of these colors. I honestly don't know how this could work, and that is what interests me greatly.
I can say with complete honesty and sincerity that it did occur just as I say. I'm sure it would be of great interest to understand how this was able to occur.
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wow,these pics are very nice,the first pic seems that the man is living in the rainbow,the second one is also very nice.
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The critical factor is the angle of the sun relative to the water drops and the observer. It has to be behind the observer, and it can't be too high in the sky, as the 'rainbow-projection' would, in that case, point into the ground.
Once you start moving towards a rainbow, you are changing the angle of the sun to yourself, and the rainbow you see would then appear to be in a different 'location' in the sky.
Once you arrive at a spot where it appeared the 'end' of the rainbow was, it is impossible for you to see light reflected off the rain drops that gave you that impression in the first place (the drops that are now in the same physical spot as the ones you saw before, which have all hit the ground by now).
For the same reason you can't see a rainbow from 'behind', you can't find the 'end' of one either.
It is a bit like trying to find the horizon, no matter what, the horizon changes as you move towards it, & by the time you reach that spot, the horizon is now off in the distance.
Another fact of rainbows to consider is that a rainbow isn't like a thin mirror, with all the reflecting drops falling in the same vertical plane. A rainbow visible to an observer at 'Spot A' could very well be comprised of drops a good distance apart, so long as the Sun-Observer angle is the same for all of them, there would likely be a very 'thick' rainbow.
However, if you define the 'physical' rainbow as
"those raindrops that, at a given time, reflect light to a stationary Observer such that he or she sees a ROY G BIV spectrum of light in the sky" Under this definition, as raindrops fall, the new ones that now Occupy the same physical spaces as the original drops did at the defined 'moment in time' ARE the rainbow, and it would then follow that, although you can't see it, you could, in fact, stand 'inside' your 'rainbow'. You would have to go back to your original location to actually see the rainbow again.
So I change my answer, you CAN find the 'end' of a rainbow, it would be the rainbow you saw awhile ago, however, from "Spot A", it is ONLY visible to Observers of the correct height standing at "Spot A"
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I am not convinced that these views are correct, and that a rainbow is always and necessarily a virtual image. A prism or a diffraction grating produces a real image, or at least real beams. They do not move with an observer's viewing position, and it is very easy to place a specific part of your hand in a particular colour of beam, and that colour does not change as you move your head while keeping your hand still.
I wonder if it is possible that in unusual weather conditions -- particularly if there is good light, and a fairly narrow funnel of precipitation -- the sunlight could be refracted or diffracted in a similar way to the way the "jewel" hanging in our window does, and produce real, not virtual, projected spectra.
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The thing about rainbows is that the shadow of your head is always in the direct center of them. So no, you can never reach the end.
In a different sense, you are always at the end of the rainbow, you are at the pointed bit of the cone of the rainbow. The person beside you has their own cone that they're at the end of too!
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The light from a rainbow is produced by internal reflection at the back of a raindrop, and dispersion as it comes out the front of the raindrop.
At visible wavelengths, the rainbow appears at 42 degrees from the Sun. When we see a rainbow, we tend to turn so we can see the whole of it, ie we have our back to the Sun.
However, when we are driving, it is best to keep our eyes ahead on the road(!) If the road happens to be angled at 42 degrees to the Sun, you will seem to be driving straight into one leg of the rainbow, and it won't appear to be moving along with you.
The light comes from a shower of rain, which can be moving towards you or away from you (or, if you are driving, you can be moving towards it). If you get the timing right, the shower of rain can come between you and the car perhaps just 50 meters in front of you, making it appear as if this car is at the end of the rainbow (and raising the expectation that soon you will be, too).
You often don't get just one shower of rain, but there can be multiple showers. This is how you can drive through one rainbow, have it disappear - and see another one. You reverse, and see the first one again.
The giveaway here is that the narrow angle between red & violet in the rainbow does not change as you "approach" the end of the rainbow (see photo provided by Andrew K Fletcher). If you were truly getting close to the end of the rainbow, you would see that it expanded so that you were clearly driving into just (say) the green band of colour, with the other colours off to the left and right of the road - but in fact all of the colours are still present, they all descend on the road ahead, they seem to cover less than 1 lane of the road, and you never drive into just one of the colours at the end of the rainbow.
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You know, I just love all the scientific explanations on here as to why something can not happen. But I'm sorry to contradict all the scientists. Yes it can. It happened to me, personally. I was kayaking on the Susquehanna River one summer afternoon, when off in the distance there was a thunderstorm. All of a sudden a beautiful rainbow appeared. So I decided to chase after it, thinking like everybody else that I couldn't reach the end. When all of a sudden I was bathed in color. It was beautiful. I really couldn't believe it myself. Here I was, doing something that I should not be able to do. I sat in the colors for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Then the rainbow just faded away. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life. So don't let anyone tell you it can't be done. I just wish I would have looked for the pot of gold. LOL (By the way, I might not be a scientist, but I am very knowledgable about nature. All from first hand experience.)
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I also had a weird rainbow experience. I was driving along and saw a very bright rainbow, smaller than usual, and as I approached it, it appeared to begin and end in this one field. I stopped my car and got out. As I got closer it became more of a ring shape, beginning and ending not far from my feet. I would have doubted my senses, but another driver stopped his car and got out too. We both stood there saying "Wow, this is amazing."
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Me and my wife had a similar experience,
after visiting a prisoner, to explain the gospel to him, who some time later died of AIDS
we were driving through two rainbows,
as if God was trying to say something to us///...
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All,
I sincerely believe I have discovered what a double rainbow with the dark band is. It is actually a 1-brane from string theory. Basically a toroid or closed string of dark energy that is evaporating. It is pulling a vacuum on the surrounding atmosphere and actually condensing water vapor. That is why they mostly accompany storms, they are creating it! My research is on my blog:
darkmattersalot.com
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To drive or walk through a 'rainbow' effect, there has to be spray in the immediate vicinity to locally refract the light and maintain the image until you pass the edge of the cone of visibility. As others have said, it's a virtual image.
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I also had a weird rainbow experience. I was driving along and saw a very bright rainbow, smaller than usual, and as I approached it, it appeared to begin and end in this one field. I stopped my car and got out. As I got closer it became more of a ring shape, beginning and ending not far from my feet. I would have doubted my senses, but another driver stopped his car and got out too. We both stood there saying "Wow, this is amazing."
If the sun is behind you and you are above the droplets that are refracting its light, you could see a circular bow - usually from an aircraft, but I suppose it might be possible on a smaller local scale if there is a ground mist, but such local effects from mist or fine ice crystals are more likely to be due to diffraction and are generally given different names, like halos, glories, and coronae.
Or you could see one reflected in water.
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My perception was - I saw the end of a rainbow - but no pot of gold - which is okay.
I walked out my door this morning at 7:00 and the sun was brightly shimmering off of the leaves. I walk towards the east to my car so I didn't notice what was behind me. As I pulled out and started driving to the west I noticed the "storm like" sky and then I saw it.
One of the most vivid rainbows I had ever seen was right in front of me. And the perceived distance between the "ends" was the shortest I had ever seen. It was not raining as I started out in the first mile and then it started to pour with the bright sun now in my rear view mirror.
At one point I looked to the left into a green grassy field and there it was - the end of a rainbow. I have seen many rainbows but this one will always stand out for me. And it was practically in my backyard.
Described as an illusion I know but I will hold it in my own heart as "seeing the end of a rainbow".
I really need to invest in a good camera to have with me at all times. Nature can be outstandingly beautiful. :)
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It should be possible to touch the end of a rainbow - you just need to ensure that the rainbow is less than an arm's length from your eye. Do the following:
- Wait for a bright, sunny day.
- Create a fan of small water droplets, such as from a fancy garden hose with a selectable spray shape.
- Stand with your back to the Sun
- With one hand, hold the hose so the spray fan is rising vertically, 1 foot in front of your face. You should see a rainbow.
- Close 1 eye (the image of the rainbow is "at infinity"; with binocular vision, the rainbow seems beyond an arm's length )
- With the other hand, reach out and touch one end of the rainbow.
- Dry yourself off with a towel.
The trick is that your eye can never reach the end of a rainbow - but your arm can.
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I remember having had a very interesting experience a number of years ago that was similar to JRmooney56's description. It was in New York, late afternoon in the fall, and I had been raking leaves in my yard when I noticed that the end of a rainbow was approaching me from the east. I stopped raking to watch what happened because I had always been under the belief that it was not possible to ever be in the end of a rainbow as it was a type of optical illusion or effect that could not be witnessed first hand. As it came closer, the yellow became brighter and the other colors faded. When it was on top of me, yes on top of me, it was as if a yellow beam of light was shining so brightly on top of me that it was possible to see the sparkles of reflection in the small particulates that were in the air around me. I believe that this effect is the basis for the mythical gold at the end of the rainbow, because they indeed looked like specs of gold. Perhaps it might be interesting rather than to disprove that people can be in the end of rainbows, to consider how this might be possible. I expect that with the increasing prevalence of wearable video technology, that it only a matter of time before this rare weather occurrence will get posted to YouTube.
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Very interesting that this impossible phenomenon has been seen by so many people. Exactly what happened in these cases is hard to know without accurate photos, diagrams, etc.; but certain meteorological conditions may be responsible. For one thing, if rain happens to be falling right in front of the car on the road, and the sun is correctly positioned, that rain could refract colors back to the viewer all the way down to pavement level. If the zone of such rain is rather narrow, which is possible in some storms, the car might pass through it rather quickly, giving the illusion of having driven "through" the rainbow. As to colors scattered all over the place surrounding the viewer: I don't know if that may be possible due to some unusual combination of circumstances such as, for example, extra-small drop size, but such a situation would not be a normal rainbow. Extra-small drop size could also account for an "expanding" rainbow, because of diffraction. This would be a situation where rain was merging into fog.
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wow... most of the people here seem to be polarized in two groups... one group doesn't know a lot about physics and nature, but is very curious and open-minded, and most of this group has also had a personal experience with the phenomenon in question and is certain it is possible, but has no idea how. The other group primarily has at least some educational background, but is not very curious, or motivated to explore how a phenomenon like this could be possible, furthermore, there seems to be an inclination to use basic information they remember from their education to refute the possibility, rather than trying to dig deeper and uncover an angle that clearly hasn't been considered before. ;)
this is kinda funny because people who identify as scientists are typically pinned as the sort of people who are most interested in thinking outside the box and discovering new things. I suspect this is a symptom of our formal education system. (re, *takes off psychology hat*
Anyway I want to explore this topic. My grandmother had this same exact experience, and I was telling my boyfriend about it and I realized it was very hard to explain so I did a google search and came across this thread (and several more examples not in this thread). I have NOT found an explanation yet, but I'm not giving up. There are some excellent clues detailed in various personal accounts of this phenomenon. One clue is, in a genuine example of being "in" a rainbow, one seems to be illuminated with coloured light. Another great clue is an apparent double instance or split image of the rainbow (one in the distance, and one close up). A third excellent clue is in the "comic" story by Jennifer Dian Reitz that Andrew linked us to on page one here. On that page Jenifer said: "Like taking a camera and shooting several shots of the same thing, on the same piece of film, the angle slightly different, and each with a different color filter." That is am excellent clue too!
I really like damocles suggestion... that this might be an instance of actual prismatic refraction, rather than the typical reflective raindrop refraction which everyone has so firmly ruled out. But I'd also like to bring to the floor another idea that could maybe be acting alone or on combination with one of these other ways rainbows colours are produced. Jennifer's description is key in inspiring this suggestion. The multiple images she described immediately made me think of the properties of optical calcite and so I did a little digging to better understand that "double refraction" phenomenon that I now know to be called, "Birefringence," officially. Here is a blurb about birefringence that I was reading before signing up to post here: http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz240.htm
My thoughts are that it's possible there was some sort of birefringent anomaly in the sky, between the sun and those two ladies, that might have caused a polarized "projection" onto the area the ladies were standing. or maybe a combination of that and some actual prismatic refraction like damocles suggested... Ice crystals have a slight birefringent quality to their structure.... But I don't know enough about atmospheric phenomena to feel certain about my theory... nor can I think of a way to practically test this theory.. I would LOVE some feedback from some curious minds.
This is a REAL phenomenon that people have experienced first-hand, but it's extremely rare, which suggests to me that there may be more than one known condition at work here. What other commonly known atmospheric conditions can we think of that might have been working in conjunction with the typical rainbow conditions we are familiar with?? I mean something besides an excess of road spray which (in my eyes) has clearly been ruled out.
Lets explore this further. Maybe this group will be the first to discover exactly HOW someone can stand at the end of a rainbow!
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There are many different effects that can be described as a "rainbow."
Once I saw what I thought was a side-view of a rainbow (actually looked like two rainbows, one on either side of the sun, viewed from the side so the colors nearly merged.) Unfortunately none of the pictures I took could capture the effect, but with some internet sleuthing I found that I had seen a pair of "Sun dogs." Here is an image that best replicates what I saw: http://wordlesstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/sundog-very-rare-ice-rainbow2.jpg
do a google image search for sundog rainbow, and you will find some pretty incredible images.
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A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but comes from an optical illusion caused by any water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light (http://www.renesola.com/lights-lighting/) source. Thus, a rainbow is not an object and cannot be physically approached. Indeed, it is impossible for an observer to see a rainbow from water droplets at any angle other than the customary one of 42 degrees from the direction opposite the light source. Even if an observer sees another observer who seems "under" or "at the end of" a rainbow, the second observer will see a different rainbow—farther off—at the same angle as seen by the first observer.
Rainbows span a continuous spectrum of colours. Any distinct bands perceived are an artefact of human colour vision, and no banding of any type is seen in a black-and-white photo of a rainbow, only a smooth gradation of intensity to a maximum, then fading towards the other side. For colours seen by the human eye, the most commonly cited and remembered sequence is Newton's seven fold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, remembered by the mnemonic, Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain
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It is possible to reach the end of the rainbow, because it happened to me. It was summer, about two years ago, and I was traveling by car north bound from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. It had been thunder storming, and I had driven in the rain for about 1/2 hour and had reached the end of the storm and could see a rainbow. The rainbow was still at a distance, in front of me, easy to see, and I was heading toward it. Between the storm moving and me moving I reached rainbow and traveled into it. It was gray around me so the colors had great contrast. Eventually the colors changed to just a bright golden yellow. This may be what has been described, by lore, as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; gold color of the light.
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Just yesterday I was swimming in the ocean in South Florida. I had taken a large crystal I have into the water with me to charge it up. It had been intermittently sprinkling throughout the day, and began sprinkling moderately while I was in the water. The sun was low in the sky as it was late in the afternoon. Suddenly I noticed the water around me was reflecting rainbow colors, and the air around me was playing tricks on my eyes. In the distance, a bit diagonal in the direction further from shore, I could see the colors in a concentrated area of the water (the other end of the rainbow ). As the front of rain moved out to sea, so did the rainbow. It was quite an amazing experience. I found this thread because I was looking for similar experiences, and wanted to share mine.
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.. It had been intermittently sprinkling throughout the day, and began sprinkling moderately while I was in the water. The sun was low in the sky as it was late in the afternoon. Suddenly I noticed the water around me was reflecting rainbow colors, and the air around me was playing tricks on my eyes. In the distance, a bit diagonal in the direction further from shore, I could see the colors in a concentrated area of the water (the other end of the rainbow ). As the front of rain moved out to sea, so did the rainbow. ..
Must have been quite a sight.
This is common where there is a reflecting surface between observer and the sun. Strictly speaking they arn't called rainbows, which are produced at very specific angles to the sun.
Another phenomenon often reported is that mentioned in the opening post, of a coloured bow at ground level that you can appear to walk or drive through. This might be what you saw, as there was rain on the surface, they are usually seen as 'dewbows' where dew on grass reflects the light - with very small droplets reflection+diffraction effects may predominate. The rain would have produced a layer of very fine droplets just above the surface. The OP mentions the hosepipe effect which is the same, you can almost feel as if you are inside the bow.
Edit: just skimmed through the whole thread, seems like quite a few people have seen these effects, obviously make quite an impression as they are quite dramatic.
The road effect some mention is due to the droplets being horizontal. In a rainbow the droplets are in a vertical plane so we see a circle or part circle. With droplets in a horizontal plane, as in a dewbow, we see a hyperbolic curve, often an ellipse, but sometimes a parabola, the ends of a parabola can appear to be straight giving the impression that a rainbow road stretches ahead and you are walking or driving along it. Rain giving a fine mist or aerosol above a road can do it, but I've only seen it a few times, usually seen on grass.
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I have often wondered if it was possible to actually stand at the end of the rainbow. I had a friend once tell me that he was in the end of the rainbow once, that it was very beautiful. He was riding a horse at the time and couldn't keep up with it. I had some questions about if this was possible but I also know my friend and trust he was telling the truth.
A couple of years later I was the cook for a camp. The evening came and the kitchen was totally cleaned up. I went outside to sit down and relax on the patio. I saw the sun setting and I saw a rainbow in front of me. As I watched it seemed to be getting closer to me. Al off a sudden it seemed as if it had disappeared, but all the atmosphere around me had a red haze to it. About 30 seconds later I saw the rainbow behind me now.
So I do believe it is possible now. I just have never heard anyone agree or explain this from a scientific view. I do believe that it must be at the right time however, during the sunset so that everything is done at the correct angle and timing.
Any thoughts about this would be great.
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The mystical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow describes the bright golden yellow light one sees at the end of the rainbow. This is how you tell your are there. There must be certain geometry between the sun, rain and clouds.
I have seen this same lighting before, but not connected to a rainbow. At that sighting, the entire western sky became that golden yellow. This strange lighting was connected to the remnants of a former hurricane, that had come north from the south, but was now downgraded to below a tropical storm, approaching my location, about an hour before sunset.
The cloud cover were very strange, with little bumps extending down from the cloud cover, that looked like little tornados trying to form, but aborting. The gray bumps were contrasted by the yellow lighting. As the cloud bank approached, the entire western sky became this bright golden yellow color. Within about ten minutes, the light turned off, as though the sun was setting. I would guess the geometry of the clouds, rain and sun were similar.
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I don't think so