The Bent Pylon of India

I write this article in response to a question on a video below sent to me by Captain Lokman Sardon, a former pilot for me to comment on. It is about a bent transmission pylon tower in India.

https://www.abplive.in/videos/viral-sach-18-07-2018-bending-electricity-pole-a-miracle-or-optical-illusion-727627

I asked him to think over the answer himself, but he remained silent even after two weeks despite my several reminders. So I guess I am forced to answer it, hopefully my answer is correct as I was not there to see and study the transmission tower.

My dear Lokeman or Loke,  

You have not answered me as to why the upper part of the high tension transmission tower seems bent when seen at an angle.

I suppose you are still wondering. It is very healthy to think and wonder as it shows our brain is still working and thinking and has not gone into decline yet.

Well my dear Captain Pilot Lokeman let me not “torture” you for an answer anymore. I shall try my dear Loke for your inquisitive mind. Thank you also for the many questions you usually ask   

I am not entirely sure of this one, the cause of this optical phenomenon but here is one very, very strong possibility. I shall try.

I suspect is there is an electrical leakage over that part of the transmission tower. It is like this.

In normal circumstances, very high voltage electricity transmission pylons if properly maintained should not leak into the surrounding air. 

But when it does, the air surrounding it will be charged and ionized and glow like the air above the Earth’s magnetic poles as it meets charged solar winds from the Sun. Physicists call this a “corona discharge”

Corona discharge on an insulator of a 500 kV overhead power line has been photographed many times before. Corona discharges represent a significant power loss for electric utilities.

A corona is formed when there is an electrical discharge generated by the ionization of a media such as air surrounding a conductor where electricity flows.

Spontaneous corona discharges also occur naturally in high-voltage systems unless care is taken to curtail the strength of its electric field. 

A corona of plasma will also occur when the strength of an electric field or the potential gradient around a conductor is high enough to form a conductive region across the air, but not high enough to cause electrical arcing to nearby objects.

This often results in a bluish glow or in other colors similar to neon lights or in vacuum gas discharge lamps such as in a florescent tube.

However plasma caused by an explosion of a hydrogen bomb or in the nuclear conversion of hydrogen into helium in the Sun are so searing hot that the light not just glows, but is blinding.  

But those emitted on transmission wires are relatively hot and may not glow, but if it does, the glow is so dim that they can only be captured by long exposure photography on dark nights.

A  corona of plasma can also be formed from neutral gas such as air subjected to a strong electromagnetic field to a point where ionized air becomes increasingly electrically conductive as to  causes a change in its behaviour such as its density, and I shall explain a little later how this causes an optical illusion.

That is what happens when there is a leakage of high tension electricity I suppose near the city of Auraiya-Dibiyapur in Uttar Pradesh in India.

I strongly suspect there is a very strong magnetic fields surrounding the upper portion of a high tension pylons. 


This generates a ball of plasma whose radius is defined up to where the bent of the tower appeared. The corona in that region is ionized and heated even though it may not glow.

However, if the air is very rarified such as up between 100 km – 320 km up above the surface of Earth the oxygen molecules in the air will glow as seen in aurora borealis (north lights) and in aurora australis (southern lights) as charged particles from the Sun collides with the Earth’s magnetic fields at the magnetic poles causing the air to glow with different colours depending whether it was nitrogen or oxygen molecules or a mixture of both with other rare gases.

Nonetheless, the corona in a charged transmission tower is invisible to the naked eye even on dark nights as the glow of the plasma is very dim partly due to the high density of air at lower altitudes unlike at very high altitudes of northern and southern lights, and partly due to the relatively lower voltage of the magnetic fields surrounding the wires.

As long as the upper portion of the pylon are charged, an electric field is always there, and an electric field cannot be blown away like dust, leaves and newspapers by the wind, rain, hailstones, even in the strongest hurricanes, or washed away by water. It is always there as long as there is a flow of electricity.

This corona of plasma causes a change in the behavior of matter such as the density of air in that region up to where the bent was.  This is an absolutely important clue to explain.

Because of the contrast in the density of these two media, within the corona and  the unaffected region outside the corona, light as it enters the corona at an angle from any direction will be refracted (bent) to one direction like the bent of a stick from the thinner air into the denser water.

How much it can optically bend depends on the sine of the angle of the incident light at the interface between the charged, and uncharged air based on their refractive index.

But this optical refraction  can only be seen at an angle, but will disappear when the direction of light becomes incident (180 degrees) just like a stick in water is bent only when seen at an angle, but not when viewed directly at line of sight when it becomes  straight.

You can observe this is so clearly as you see the two legs of the transmission tower quite separate when seen from an angle, but as you approach the towers at the line of sight, it became straight covering both legs together as one.

Meantime you will also observe the upper portion of the tower where the charged plasma is, no longer bent because the light into the corona is now incidental (180 degrees) like as if you are seeing a stick in water directly from above even though there is a difference in the refractive index of air and water 

But as you move away in the opposite direction, the difference due to their refractive indices become apparent once again and the bent is now in the opposite direction exactly like you see a stick in a swimming pool in the opposite direction. Observe this phenomenon carefully yourself in the video.

There is nothing mysterious about this optical illusion. It is just simple A Level physics on electricity, magnetism and on optics we learn in school. You do not require a PhD degree to explain this simple phenomenon on plasma physics combined with optics.

I hope I have been helpful.

(Unfortunately the Department of Physics under the University Grants Commission Centre of India for Advanced Studies in the video did not offer a proper explanation accept mentioned it is just an optical illusion?)

lim ju boo