[Seany]

LOL. I mean like fantasize or fantasise.. Or realise or realise.. Or enterprize or enterprise. Or..

[Karen W. (OP)]

I think we use a lot of both.

[Seany]

Yup.. Same in England.. I get told off by my English teacher for using -se though! I thought england use -se and americans use -ze.. Duno!

[Karen W. (OP)]

realize and fantasize

[Seany]

Is that what you use?

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Hi Karen, have posted my experience on your thread too because it adds credence to your initial post and means that at least three of us now are completely bonkers or you, my wife and I saw the end of a rainbow.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=18551.msg208231#msg208231

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.

[Madidus_Scientia]

An amusing youtube video on this topic

She can't be serious, no one can be that stupid, can they?

[Cris12]

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 you. 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.

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Aloha Cris12 Welcome to the NS forum and hope you stay for a while.
Thanks for adding your own experience traveling through the end of a rainbow.

[Cris12]

Aloha Andrew. Thank you for welcoming me. I’ve just gotten up (Christmas morning) and I’ve just finished reading one of your links (Jenniverse.com), which was a very interesting read. I don’t know if you’ve gone to the message forum at Discover.com that is also discussing the end of the rainbow. Here is the link if you’re interested:

newbielink:http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9701967776/m/5111941998/p/2 [nonactive]

As you may know, Hawaii is place full of rainbows. I see at least one almost every day.  There are days when the rainbows would seem to fall on the freeway rush traffic and as I drive towards it I'd hope to experience passing through the end of the rainbow again. But the rainbow would just stay so tantalizingly out of reach.

There are too many skeptics who are too sure of themselves but we who have experienced it just can’t deny what was an amazing phenomenon.

[lyner]

Cris 12
Are you saying you have or have not seen this phenomenon?

[Cris12]

sophie,

On my first post (about 3 rungs up), I'm relating my experience with going through the end of a rainbow. The first one happened 11 years ago and the second, about 8 years ago. I've written them up in my journal, by the way.

On my second post, I'm just saying that there are lots of rainbows where I'm from but I haven't experienced it again since then; although,  there were occasions where I thought it would happen again. So to answer your question, I have seen this phenomena.  []

[lyner]

And were you walking or in a car?

[Cris12]

Driving, in a car.

[lyner]

This confirms my view that the appearance of a rainbow may be due to something local to the car. For instance, the wheels throw up spray which could cause a partial  bow to appear locally, which would be very close to the observer. Bright sunlight and very dark clouds in the background could lead to a very striking and 'contrasty' rainbow. A very intense experience which could constitute a more compex illusion. The angle would be the same for the arc but the place where the arc 'touched the ground' could be different for each end of the bow.
The mundane explanation has to be preferable to a 'magical' one, boring as it may be.

[Cris12]

So how do you explain that I could see the rainbow where it landed from about 50 yards away and it stayed where it was as I approached it and passed through it? Also, the road wasn’t wet so my wheels weren’t throwing up sprays.

One other person claimed to have gotten out of the car and stood in the colors. You probably don’t believe her but I’ll give her the benefit of a doubt. Here is a link to her illustration of her experience.

newbielink:http://jenniverse.com/impossible%20things%20rainbow.html [nonactive]

You’ll have to try a little harder to convince me I didn’t see what I saw. You might as well tell me that I don’t exist. []

[Karen W. (OP)]

OK.. Heres some things that happened that day.. earlier while I was at school watching the rainbow with the last kids... It had rained like a half hour or so before.. not hard mind you just a tad.. and  when I said goodbye to the kids and locked up it had to have been about 45 minutes to an hour of time elapsed since the rain and the incident in the car..with the rainbow!  The only time I couldn't see the top of the arch was as I passed through it it was over the solid top of my car.. when I leaned out there was still an arch over head but I could only see so far because of the car top! The colors on top were not visible to me fom inside the car but I could still see it on my van and owhen I slowly came out of it it was still behind me bu8t I still saw another further away and was confused as to if I was seeing another or the same.. The image behind me was still there it did not move as everyone states that they do! I am not uncertain of that the bow of colors came down almost to the ground in front of the bushes not behind them or beyond them right in front of them.. and by the way It was not raining anymore that had quit when the kids and I went out to see the rainbow before and there was no road splash as the road had already dried up in the sun before I came along... There was however still water on the bushes and grass on the side of the road... you could see it was still damp! The road held no splash up though!
I understand what sophie is saying it just does not fit into the explanation as I saw it so I reall don't get it! I have seen other rainbows that I tried to see the end.. Hasn't everyone? But They indeed did all move away or seem too as we tried to get closer and then they were just gone or just staying out of reach.. This one however did not move and was very clear and very defined and I was shocked as I came down the road to see its end ahead of me the closer I got the bigger it seemed and more vibrant in color and as I slowed to drive through the end was to the right of the front side passenger side of my car I would say it was within two feet of the ground.. just under my hip height if I were to guess... right in front of the bushes as I could see the colors reflecting on the bush as it came down.. I wish I could show you what I mean..

Take a huge sheet of clear plastic paint a rainbow across it with like a water color base so you could still see through it.. then stand it in front of a bush on the ground.. That would be as close as I could explain it to you!

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Sophie no one is saying it is a magical experience. We are just stating exactly what we saw. A rainbow that was not circular that touched the ground on at least one end and did not move as we approached it but grew in size the closer we got. People were walking around outside with colours drizzled all over them. The area was much brighter than outside of the rainbow end. We drove very slowly though the vibrant colour show, marvelling in the beauty of what lay before us.

If anyone up to the point my wife and I experienced this had claimed you could reach the end of a rainbow. I too would have said that I would have to see it for myself before I could believe it.

The answer might be found in the double rainbow, somehow combining the light from both of them into a central focal point, so that light is hitting the same spot from two sources. Just a guess but there must be a logical answer somewhere for what we all saw.

[lyner]

Akf.
Have you seen and understood how the rainbow is formed? There are dozens of links plus many old School textbooks with diagrams.
You haven't made it clear whether you were in a car?

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Yes we were in a car. http://forums.mokata.net/ar/t6327.htm However several others I have found were able to walk through it. The people who were walking though the one my wife and I saw were bathed in colours and the light was golden. Yes I do understand that the rainbow is an illusion. But this one was a bloody good one.

Not hard to understand really when one looks at a crystal pendant reflecting light around our homes from the sunlight outside the home, it does not need a window to do this so why does our rainbow require us to be in a car?

Alf
Have you seen and understood how the rainbow is formed? There are dozens of links plus many old School textbooks with diagrams.
You haven't made it clear whether you were in a car?