Speaker0: Now edgar i have a question for you most rational people try to avoid storms at any cost,
Speaker0: you ever think to yourself hey maybe let's not go after the storm or better
Speaker0: yet maybe let's go in the opposite direction of that storm not really because
Speaker0: i i'm probably not a very rational person i think to do this so welcome myth fits.
Speaker1: It's time for MythBits. I'm Keri Byron.
Speaker0: And I'm Tori Bellacci. Welcome back, Keri. Good to see you. It's been a while.
Speaker1: Well, not that long. It's been like a whole week.
Speaker0: So listen to this. I just went to a friend's going away party.
Speaker0: He's leaving California. And then another good friend of ours is moving out of California.
Speaker0: Everybody's leaving the state. And in fact, my brother, he just moved his whole family to Texas.
Speaker0: and so I get this call the other
Speaker0: day from my parents and they're like okay you know we
Speaker0: don't want to freak you out but we just got a call from your brother there's this
Speaker0: huge storm going through Texas and they all had to move out of a room with any
Speaker0: window so he basically just gathered up his whole family and moved down into
Speaker0: the basement until the storm passed and I'm just like yeah like Like we have
Speaker0: earthquakes here in California,
Speaker0: but there's so few and far in between that to me,
Speaker0: a tornado or storm, I'll take earthquakes all day.
Speaker1: Oh, yeah. I always when I'm talking to people that come from from the Midwest
Speaker1: and Tornado Alley, like they're always like, oh, my God, it's so scary.
Speaker1: You guys live out there with earthquakes, but they happen all the time and it's like a little shake.
Speaker1: And I'm like, I like it might wake me up. And I've had one really,
Speaker1: really big earthquake like 1989.
Speaker1: Mind you, that was terrifying. But I've had one in my lifetime,
Speaker1: whereas tornadoes seem to be happening all the freaking time.
Speaker1: I was actually just recently in Oklahoma City and I was I was hanging out with this guy, Val Caster.
Speaker1: We were filming something and he's he's a storm tracker and a meteorologist.
Speaker0: And OK, I watch those guys and I just think to myself, what is are you insane?
Speaker0: Like, why are you doing that? You're literally heading towards disaster like that.
Speaker0: What what happened to you? What happened that you're driving towards disaster?
Speaker1: Tori.
Speaker1: What?
Speaker0: You're looking at me?
Speaker1: I know you.
Speaker0: I'm not that crazy. I do stupid stuff, but I'm not that. I'm not like a death
Speaker0: wish. I don't have a death wish, Carrie.
Speaker1: Dory, I've seen you jump off buildings, be locked in a coffin with snakes.
Speaker1: I've seen you try to jump a wagon with a beach cruiser.
Speaker1: I've seen you buried alive.
Speaker1: I've seen you do so many insane things. there's no way you can tell me that
Speaker1: you wouldn't have been a storm chaser before you were a family man
Speaker0: Maybe i don't know it's just it's so unpredictable
Speaker0: but you know like we tested we tested a lot of uh storm and weather related
Speaker0: myths do you remember we were testing um do metal cleats attract lightning more
Speaker0: than plastic cleats and i remember we went out to this facility It was like
Speaker0: the electric company's facility.
Speaker0: And they have this giant, like lightning creator. It would create these giant
Speaker0: lightning bolts so that they could test their equipment out.
Speaker0: So if, you know, if their transformers gets hit by lightning, will it explode?
Speaker0: And so they let us come and bring our dummy, our ballistic gel golfers into
Speaker0: this facility. And I remember it was like the coolest thing because it's,
Speaker0: they would just charge it up. and then a huge bolt of lightning would shoot out of this huge probe.
Speaker1: I love all the places that we got access to. I mean, we got to go to NASA. We got to go to IndyCar.
Speaker1: But like this this was local. This was so crazy.
Speaker1: You could actually see those giant lightning bolts indoors. And we did a couple myths there.
Speaker1: We did like the kite for Ben Franklin to see if lightning could hit the kite
Speaker1: and then charge up the key. Like, I mean, what a cool experience to be able
Speaker1: to go into a facility like that.
Speaker1: Like, there's no way without being on Mythbusters, I would have known that even
Speaker1: existed. We're so lucky.
Speaker1: I mean, when you're a little kid, you're scared of thunder and lightning.
Speaker1: But like when you actually see it, it is terrifying up close.
Speaker0: Yeah. You know, it's a good buddy of mine actually got hit by lightning when he was a kid.
Speaker0: He's got this crazy story. Yeah, it's like it like blew his shoe off or like
Speaker0: he was running through a graveyard.
Speaker0: I forget the like the details, but he got hit by lightning and it is the most insane story.
Speaker0: I almost wish we can get him. You know what? I'm going to call him right now. I know this is.
Speaker1: Dude, you're going to call him.
Speaker0: Well, I just want to see. I just want to. Yeah.
Speaker0: It's such a good story that I feel like I'm going to screw it up.
Speaker0: I'm not going to have all the details. And you're going to love this story.
Speaker1: Let's see. Yes, please. Please. This is crazy.
Speaker0: Walshy, what's up? Dude, what are you doing right now? I know this.
Speaker0: We're recording a podcast. And I was wondering if you would quickly come on
Speaker0: and just tell the story of when you got hit by lightning.
Speaker0: Of course. All right. Let's go.
Speaker0: Oh, Walshie. Thank you for coming on. This is Carrie. Carrie,
Speaker0: this is Mike Walsh. He's a good friend of mine.
Speaker2: Hi, Carrie.
Speaker1: Wow, you don't look like you've been strapped by lightning.
Speaker2: You don't see the bottom half of me.
Speaker1: Oh, God. Oh, God. I want to know everything.
Speaker1: Where were you? How did it feel? Oh, my God. I've never met anybody who's like...
Speaker1: been just hit by lightning. This is crazy.
Speaker2: So I was 14, sophomore in high school.
Speaker2: And my buddies and I used to go every every week we'd go to the Holy Cross football
Speaker2: game. This is in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Speaker2: And we'd walk there. And our walking
Speaker2: path took us through this really long cemetery called hope cemetery so great
Speaker2: game great day beautifully blue sunny skies and we're coming back and we're
Speaker2: in the middle of the cemetery and it goes from like blue skies to pitch black
Speaker2: and there's nowhere to go and my cousin and i and the rest of our friends but
Speaker2: my cousin and i grew up next to each other in worcester and we always used to
Speaker2: play in lightning storm i mean just like storms we used to love storms um so
Speaker2: anyhow we're in the middle of the cemetery it starts hailing
Speaker2: and we see lightning hit a tree and the
Speaker2: tree just starts smoking but you know we're it's a very long cemetery so we
Speaker2: just start running uh toward you know toward home which was we're still probably
Speaker2: two miles from home but we start running in that direction and uh and we see
Speaker2: the lightning hit a tree and my buddy Chuck,
Speaker2: we called him Scott and I just start sprinting.
Speaker2: There are 10 of us, um, all good buddies. And.
Speaker2: I don't know if it was the lightning hitting me or after I was hit or just before I was hit,
Speaker2: but I remember seeing like a shelf of light because it was pitch black at this point,
Speaker2: where it was like 10 foot tall and it was all bright.
Speaker2: And the next thing I knew, I'm on the ground.
Speaker2: My sock was on fire. I could smell smoke. What? Oh, my God, dude.
Speaker0: That's so insane.
Speaker1: Your sock is on fire? and just running through a graveyard
Speaker2: Yeah it's crazy so i'm i'm on the ground and my buddy chuck is on the ground
Speaker2: next to me i forgot which one said it first i think i think he said
Speaker2: walsh i think i've been hit by lightning and i was like yeah me too and we caught
Speaker2: up but everything was super disorienting like the brains my our brains just
Speaker2: weren't working so i started running in the wrong direction. Sock is still on.
Speaker0: That's what happened to you. Now it all makes sense, Mike.
Speaker2: Still recovering. So my sock's on fire and I think I like kind of dusted it
Speaker2: out and I'm running in the wrong direction and my friends turned me around.
Speaker2: And I remember saying, hey, well, someone grabbed my leg and because I couldn't
Speaker2: feel anything below my knee. So I thought and my leg was blown off.
Speaker0: Oh, my God.
Speaker2: Yeah, and whoever it was, one of my buddies is like, you have your leg,
Speaker2: you're running. So you're good.
Speaker2: You didn't like not touch your leg.
Speaker1: You didn't mean touch it to make sure you had feeling. You meant you thought
Speaker1: that you left your leg behind and somebody needed to pick it up and bring it.
Speaker2: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker1: Oh, my God.
Speaker2: It was just, I couldn't feel anything below my knee.
Speaker0: Did it knock your shoe off?
Speaker2: It was hanging off. So it was, I had a pair of Chuck Taylors.
Speaker2: In fact, uh, my friend Chuck's mom, uh,
Speaker2: Called i guess because i don't even think there was email at the time and
Speaker2: and called the ceo converse and told the
Speaker2: story and we got free chuck free leather high top chuck
Speaker2: taylor's because we couldn't afford oh that's awesome it was a
Speaker2: huge win but yeah but my
Speaker2: cut my canvas chucks were like hanging off so
Speaker2: i had braces at the time so i think it hit it
Speaker2: was it was um cut all along the
Speaker2: side about three quarters or so but along
Speaker2: the eyelets so the eyelets
Speaker2: might have saved me otherwise it might have hit me in the face with my
Speaker2: brace yeah dude yeah so we're
Speaker2: running we're running and yeah i'm running
Speaker2: on something that i can't feel with my foot my
Speaker2: my sneaker flopping along and we run straight out
Speaker2: and chuck and i somehow we're still kind of like ahead of the rest of the
Speaker2: pack and we run into this house no
Speaker2: knocking first house we see of course
Speaker2: they're horrified and um this is
Speaker2: still in Worcester and and they're like what's going
Speaker2: on what's going on and we've been hit by lightning so we're sitting we someone
Speaker2: calls an ambulance I guess my cousin had my home phone number um he calls my
Speaker2: parents and we're we still can't process like we still can't hold a train of thought at all.
Speaker2: And I remember we're sitting on there, Chuck and I next to each other,
Speaker2: they're carpeted steps waiting for an ambulance or my parents to show up where we got there first.
Speaker2: And our friends are like, you know, they're all like, what the hell was that?
Speaker2: Are they going to make it? Because we weren't quite sure what was going on.
Speaker2: I had heart palpitation.
Speaker0: Oh my God.
Speaker2: Could not think, like just could not hold a train of thought.
Speaker1: Not the phone call your parents are expecting to get, like, when you're in trouble.
Speaker1: Your son's been hit by lightning. Like, that's crazy.
Speaker0: Right.
Speaker2: Exactly. And then they got there before the ambulance, which is crazy,
Speaker2: because we were only a couple miles from the house.
Speaker2: But anyhow, they got there first, and...
Speaker2: We said, cancel the ambulance or whatever. We didn't go in the ambulance.
Speaker2: We're like, just take us to the hospital because we started feeling a little bit better.
Speaker2: We knew we weren't 100% yet.
Speaker0: You think?
Speaker2: Yeah. But we thought we were pretty good. So we're like, no,
Speaker2: I'm going to just go with my parents.
Speaker2: And we get in the car. And going back to the fact that we used to run around
Speaker2: in the storms and they didn't love it because my dad's tornado experience.
Speaker2: They're like, you sure you're okay? You sure you're okay? We're like,
Speaker2: yeah, no, we're going to be fine. I think I broke my elbow, which I did.
Speaker2: By the way, our buddies said we're on the ground for like a minute,
Speaker2: got thrown like 10 feet up in the air.
Speaker2: And, you know, that could be 14-year-olds exaggerating, but that's what they said.
Speaker2: But I did break my elbow. And when I told my parents, I'm like,
Speaker2: yeah, I'm okay. I think we're going to be okay.
Speaker2: They're like, what are you doing playing Thunderstorms?
Speaker0: This is why I told you not to play in the Thunderstorms.
Speaker1: God, the most I told you so moment of a parent's life ever.
Speaker1: I just, all you kids out there, listen to us. You could get hit by lightning
Speaker1: if you go play in a storm. My God.
Speaker0: But then tell the story about years later, like in your adult life,
Speaker0: you went to the dentist and tell, tell them that story.
Speaker2: Oh yeah. So I, yeah, we, by the way, we, we get, so we get to the hospital,
Speaker2: broke my elbow, had a heart palpitation and stuff. And we're like, what do we do?
Speaker2: Um, what's, what do we do to like, is there any treatment? They're like, I don't know.
Speaker2: Most people that show up and they show up in an ambulance and they die.
Speaker0: Most people don't survive this.
Speaker2: Yeah. So we don't, we don't really have any advice, but yeah.
Speaker2: So then many years later, I moved to LA and from Boston and I had,
Speaker2: um, I went to a new, a new dentist.
Speaker2: She asked me, she's like, have you ever been electrocuted? And I was like, no, why do you ask?
Speaker2: And she said, you have all these tiny micro fractures in your teeth.
Speaker2: And I've only seen it before when people have been electrocuted.
Speaker2: And I was like, oh, I was hit by lightning. And she's like, well,
Speaker1: Yeah.
Speaker1: Wait, so all of your teeth have micro fractures in them?
Speaker2: Yeah, a lot of micro fractures, which.
Speaker0: That's so crazy.
Speaker2: I've moved a lot. So when I go to a new city, I have a new dentist.
Speaker2: They're like, yeah, I guess that explains it. I mean, I don't know what else would have done that.
Speaker0: Oh, yeah. I got hit by lightning.
Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah. And also, can we just talk about the fact that your dentist sees
Speaker1: a lot of people that have been electrocuted, so like knows what to look for? Yeah. Wow. It's true.
Speaker2: There's this there's a crazy little side note to this whole thing about the
Speaker2: brain part of it if you want me to go into that yeah go
Speaker1: Ahead tell us tell us i'm so interested on the science of this like what happens
Speaker1: to your brain when you get hit by lightning
Speaker2: It was totally scrambled and and i
Speaker2: can't really the only way to describe it is that i just couldn't hold a thought
Speaker2: and chucks was the same way we just couldn't hold a thought in fact like 10
Speaker2: years later i went back to massachusetts and we're hanging out he's like do
Speaker2: you ever do you have any like um anything that happens as a result of the lightning i'm like well
Speaker2: In addition to the obvious, I'm not quite right, but I hear this ringing noise
Speaker2: every now and then, and it's really piercing and kind of like disorienting.
Speaker2: He's like, no way I hear that, too.
Speaker2: So that that was a weird thing.
Speaker0: Oh, dude, thank you so much for coming on and telling that story.
Speaker0: It's like it's so perfect. And I love you. I miss you. It's good to see you, dude.
Speaker2: Same, brother. Miss you, too. Love you. Good to see you again, Carrie.
Speaker1: Don't go walking through cemeteries in the rain.
Speaker2: I won't. Yeah.
Speaker0: You learn your lesson, kid.
Speaker2: Yeah. All right. See you guys.
Speaker1: Tori, I don't know about you, but trying to find the perfect,
Speaker1: memorable, beautiful gift that just focuses on family and memories is difficult.
Speaker1: That's where Aura Frames comes in. I got this frame for my mom and I love it
Speaker1: because basically we put a bunch of digital pictures on this frame.
Speaker1: And anybody who has access can add photos in. So my sister and I just filled
Speaker1: it with like grandkid pictures and memories.
Speaker1: And it just scrolls through everything that we want her to think about during the holidays.
Speaker0: First one we got, we got from my parents. And they loved it so much that they bought all the kids one.
Speaker0: So now we're all connected as a family and people are loading up photos from time to time.
Speaker0: And it's just it's so awesome because you're keeping up on everybody's life.
Speaker1: I actually put one in my daughter's room so that she could remember all of the
Speaker1: awesomeness of our full relationship together. Because I feel like when they're,
Speaker1: they don't get a long-term memory until they're like seven.
Speaker1: So I want her to remember that trip to Legoland, to Disneyland,
Speaker1: all of the traditions, all of the time we spent together. And I feel like it
Speaker1: just continually jogs her memory to be like, oh yeah, mommy took me there.
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Speaker1: Hey, guys, welcome back to MythFits. I mean, Tori, that lightning story was insane.
Speaker1: I can't, I just, I can't even wrap my head around how crazy it is for him to
Speaker1: be, like, running through a cemetery, get hit by lightning, and then,
Speaker1: like, his parents answer the phone.
Speaker1: Like, that is the strangest explanation. Oh, my God.
Speaker0: Yeah. And what's funny is, like, he is insane. Like, I mean,
Speaker0: he's like a great time. Like when we go out, we just get crazy.
Speaker0: But now it makes sense. Like he got his wires fried.
Speaker0: It all makes sense now that Mike Walsh is the way he is. And I love that.
Speaker1: I love all your friends have like nicknames. He's Walshy.
Speaker1: That's how you, I know you love somebody is they have some sort of nickname to them like that.
Speaker0: You know, there's one year we went to Sundance and it
Speaker0: was like this big group from manhattan beach that
Speaker0: he would hang out with and so we get into salt lake
Speaker0: city and this guy brought a cane and
Speaker0: a neck brace and he we would just go into
Speaker0: the shopping centers or you know in the grocery stores and he would just fake
Speaker0: like falling he would just fall in the middle of the grocery store and people
Speaker0: would come over like are you okay are you okay and uh i that's not a bit on
Speaker0: video but it was just like they're just hilarious these crazy uh.
Speaker1: Guys were ahead of your time with all of that social media
Speaker0: Stuff. No, we're actually behind the times.
Speaker1: We're... Oh, this is when you were old.
Speaker0: This was like a couple of years ago. Oh, okay.
Speaker1: I, you know, I've been obsessed with lightning for a long time.
Speaker1: I just think it's so cool.
Speaker1: And I remember sitting on the back porch of my Aunt Betty's house and just watching
Speaker1: the thunder and lightning.
Speaker1: And just, it was always so cool.
Speaker1: In fact, I was on a date one time where he was a pilot and he flew in for this date.
Speaker1: It was it was we were, you know, out on the wharf. We're kind of like walking
Speaker1: around and we decided a blind date.
Speaker1: No, sort of. It was a fix up. It was a fix up.
Speaker0: But you knew like you kind of did you know what he looked like or.
Speaker1: I sort of knew what he looked like. Honestly, our friend Craig Ferguson hooked me up with him.
Speaker1: It was his pilot. And so he came with references Wait a name drop?
Speaker1: Well Megan his wife was really the one that fixed me up They're like we love
Speaker1: him He's single You're single Anyway he came with references right So Okay
Speaker1: We're walking around. It's starting to get stormy. And all of a sudden,
Speaker1: the thunder and lightning starts.
Speaker1: So we've got a bottle of wine. We're just sitting on a bench watching the sea
Speaker1: kind of get higher, the bay getting higher and higher and start to like the
Speaker1: waves are kind of crashing up really, really high up onto the pier.
Speaker1: And then we watched lightning strike the Bay Bridge.
Speaker0: Whoa.
Speaker1: I mean, the whole sky lit up. I mean, this turned out to be the thunderstorms
Speaker1: that started the epic fires that happened in California.
Speaker0: I remember that.
Speaker1: It was just a wild night.
Speaker0: I remember that. Stupidly, we went on the roof of where I was living at the time in San Francisco.
Speaker0: Because we saw the lightning strikes were hitting Twin Peaks.
Speaker0: And so I was like getting these slow motion shots on my phone.
Speaker0: It was like the dumbest thing.
Speaker0: You look at a lightning storm. Why don't you run up on your roof?
Speaker1: Seriously, you got to clearly from Walsh's story right there.
Speaker1: You probably don't want to be outside when this kind of stuff happens.
Speaker1: So that's why I was like, I think it's time to end this date when we're seeing
Speaker1: that happening. And he couldn't fly home. So he had to spend the night at a hotel downtown.
Speaker0: Speaking of lightning strikes, do you have a photo of that?
Speaker1: I do have a photo of that, actually. So one of our – it's funny enough.
Speaker1: I saw a photo of it online.
Speaker1: And the photographer that took this photo was –
Speaker1: See that that photo? I saw this photo on Instagram later and I'm like,
Speaker1: yes, this is what was happening.
Speaker1: So it turns out the photographer that took this photo, Carlos Gonzalez,
Speaker1: is the cousin of one of our old producers on Mythbusters.
Speaker0: No way. Small world.
Speaker1: Very, very small world. So I asked if I could, you know, have a copy of this
Speaker1: photo because it was just such an epic night and such a beautiful thing to watch.
Speaker1: And like I I will never forget it.
Speaker0: You know what? I'm going to see if I can pull up the video from when I was on
Speaker0: the rooftop because it's literally one of the craziest slow motion videos I've ever taken.
Speaker1: You took a video of it?
Speaker0: Yeah.
Speaker1: So you're standing outside with a phone up in the air?
Speaker0: Right. So dumb.
Speaker1: It's getting worse. Yeah.
Speaker0: But I posted it and some news network reached out and they're like,
Speaker0: is it okay if we use this footage? Really?
Speaker0: Yeah. It was nuts. I'll pull it up and post it. I'll send it to you.
Speaker0: I wanted to show you this video that's going viral.
Speaker0: It's like a basketball court during a storm.
Speaker0: The lightning hits the court and then it liquefies and gets molten and falls down.
Speaker2: Now, I am sure at this point that a lot of you guys have seen this video right
Speaker2: here claiming that they captured some sort of glitch in the matrix.
Speaker2: This clip has been going viral everywhere. I've been tagged in it and DM in
Speaker2: it many, many times, and it shows this guy recording some sort of sports field
Speaker2: where lightning is striking.
Speaker2: Strange part about this, though, is that the lightning turns into a liquid directly
Speaker2: after striking the ground. And as you can see, the field is covered in this liquid.
Speaker2: There were a lot of people in the comments as well, I assume going along with the joke.
Speaker2: But here's the problem. Even if you're going along with the joke,
Speaker2: other people that don't know what this is are going to believe you.
Speaker2: This comment right here claims that it's called lightning liquidity,
Speaker2: which actually does sound pretty legit.
Speaker2: It only happens when the temperature is below zero degrees Celsius and the dew point is low.
Speaker2: The lightning absorbs the dew. This comment got 50,000 likes,
Speaker2: and I'm sure a bunch of people believed it.
Speaker2: I'm going to burst your bubble, though. This is absolutely fake and edited.
Speaker0: There we go. Busted. Look at that. We're busted in viral videos as we talk.
Speaker1: When he said liquid lightning, I'm like, That's not a thing.
Speaker0: Right? But I thought it was funny.
Speaker1: Tori, remember that clip you sent me of Alan Pan? He was the guy.
Speaker1: He was one of the contestants on the search for the next Mythbusters.
Speaker1: And he did like a lightning, like a cool lightning video.
Speaker0: Yes.
Speaker1: Okay, so you sent me this clip. It's Alan Pan, and he's kind of doing something
Speaker1: that we did. It looks a little familiar,
Speaker0: Doesn't it?
Speaker1: Yeah, it's a Tesla coil. And it's just kind of like it's he's,
Speaker1: you know, seeing who's going to get hit.
Speaker0: But yeah, he's got he's got these four dummies set up. There are these wood
Speaker0: dummies that he made. And then one of them is holding a sword.
Speaker0: One has a golf club and one has an umbrella. And he's trying to see which lightning
Speaker0: strike would hit first. Like, where would the lightning go to first?
Speaker1: Yeah, in case you're, you know, walking around in a lightning storm with a sword.
Speaker1: Actually, one of your friends might do that.
Speaker1: That Alan Pan guy is crazy. I feel like we need to have him on the show sometime.
Speaker1: He's like crazy like you.
Speaker0: Oh, my God. That's a great idea because he was one of the contestants on the
Speaker0: search, Mythbusters search.
Speaker0: So I would love to hear what he has to say while filming that show.
Speaker1: Get all the dirt. Yeah, I mean, I think that they are using the same Tesla coil,
Speaker1: or at least the same concept of what you used for the White Rabbit project when
Speaker1: we were trying to simulate superhero powers.
Speaker1: Yeah, I was like Lightning Man.
Speaker0: Yeah, you were like Lightning Man. It's kind of crazy because they put me in the steel mesh suit.
Speaker0: You know, it's like the suit of armor underneath the chain mail.
Speaker0: And so that allows the lightning or the electricity, the bolts to pass through
Speaker0: the suit and not through your body.
Speaker0: So I was literally shooting bolts of lightning out of my hand.
Speaker0: And it was cool because we had these like ninja set up, but they were like balloons
Speaker0: filled with methane gas.
Speaker0: So I would hit the heads and they would explode, you know, make these fireballs.
Speaker0: But what happened is when we first started, there was a hole in the chain mail.
Speaker0: And so it was like tasing me in the hand.
Speaker0: And I'm like, ah, is this supposed to happen?
Speaker0: Like, this isn't supposed to be happening, right? Like, isn't it supposed to
Speaker0: pass through the suit, not into my hand?
Speaker0: And they had to like readjust it. But then it was totally safe. But it was pretty fun.
Speaker1: What a weird experience to have.
Speaker0: I know.
Speaker1: The job that you and I have held has 3,000 weird stories. Like,
Speaker1: oh, this one time I came to work, put on a chainmail suit and just radiated lightning.
Speaker1: Like these are not these are not regular bar stories when you're sitting around
Speaker1: being like, oh, yeah, let me tell you about the old days.
Speaker0: Like the old. Yeah, totally. Anyway, speaking of golfing in a storm,
Speaker0: there was this guy at a driving range.
Speaker0: He hits a golf ball.
Speaker0: And let me show you what happens.
Speaker1: Oh, wow. So he hits a golf ball into the air and lightning strikes the golf ball before it lands.
Speaker1: That's bananas because it's the highest thing in the air.
Speaker0: That's so wild.
Speaker1: Okay, what are you doing in a lightning storm with a golf club,
Speaker1: dude? Have you not seen Mythbusters?
Speaker0: Look how crazy that is. The lightning strikes the golf ball. It's so rad.
Speaker1: You never know what's going to happen. I can't believe the things that people catch on on video.
Speaker1: Like they're just filming this guy
Speaker1: at a driving range and all of a sudden lightning hitting his golf ball.
Speaker0: But how crazy is it that they're still there? I mean, that storm is insane,
Speaker0: but these guys are still at the driving range. They're like, no, I'm not giving up.
Speaker1: I feel like we clearly need to have a conversation with everybody.
Speaker1: We've gotten a little too relaxed around lightning.
Speaker0: I got another clip that I want to show you. It's this phenomenon that happens
Speaker0: during a lightning storm if it will hit like a power line and then that surge
Speaker0: of energy will just run up and down the street following the power lines. Check this out.
Speaker0: what right it almost looks
Speaker0: fake it does look fake it's
Speaker0: like is that ai so you see the you see this city street just for people who
Speaker0: are listening it's a city street at night during a lightning storm you see the
Speaker0: lightning hit like a telephone pole way down the street and then you see this
Speaker0: ball of white light follow the power line cross the street and then head back
Speaker0: down the other side of the street.
Speaker0: I mean, it's just, it's just unbelievable.
Speaker1: I mean, I hate now that anytime I see something cool, I assume it's AI before I assume it's real.
Speaker1: Like that is just way too cool looking.
Speaker0: Sad that that's the state we're in. It's like, yeah, it's hard to,
Speaker0: it's hard to believe what you see anymore.
Speaker1: All right. After looking at all these clips and hearing the story from your
Speaker1: friend, clearly we're all getting a little too relaxed around lightning and storms.
Speaker1: So we've got our friend Edgar O'Neill, the storm chaser, to come on and bust
Speaker1: a couple myths for us about what you should do if there's a tornado, lightning, or a storm.
Speaker0: That's right. Stick around because it is the season of storms. You don't want to miss.
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Speaker1: No, no.
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Speaker1: It looks like something a human would eat. And she's got skin issues because
Speaker1: she is a bully, so she seems less itchy.
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Speaker0: Oh, tell me about it. Every morning I got to get up and I got to dish out wet
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Speaker0: Welcome back, MythBits. Now we are about to talk to Edgar O'Neill.
Speaker0: He is a storm chaser, and he's going to give us some tips on what to do if you're ever stuck in a storm.
Speaker1: Hey there! Welcome!
Speaker0: Welcome! Hey, how are y'all? Thanks for coming on our show. How are you?
Speaker0: I'm doing fantastic. I'm excited to be on the show and, you know,
Speaker0: talk to the MythBusters.
Speaker1: I gotta say, it's so strange. I have slowly just gathered a friend group of
Speaker1: more and more storm trackers, storm chasers.
Speaker1: Like, I guess it's just people who are really into adrenaline and science.
Speaker0: Yeah, yeah, for sure. If you like adrenaline and science, I mean,
Speaker0: what better thing to do than storm chase? It like merges those two things together.
Speaker0: Yeah, it's insane. Now, Edgar, I have a question for you.
Speaker0: Most rational people try to avoid storms at any cost.
Speaker0: do you ever do you ever think to yourself hey maybe let's not go after the storm
Speaker0: or better yet maybe let's go in the opposite direction of that storm does that ever cross your mind,
Speaker0: not really because i i'm probably not a very rational person i think to do this
Speaker0: so uh yeah it's it always is funny when you you know you're there's several
Speaker0: times where you're just beelining it towards a tornado and you just see all
Speaker0: these cars running away from it you're like,
Speaker0: Yeah, I'm doing this. Yeah, it tells me I need to make better decisions sometimes.
Speaker1: All right. Since you're an expert in tornadoes, what kind of advice would you
Speaker1: give people who are trying to prep themselves?
Speaker1: Like just a layman that's like, okay, one's coming. I'm inexperienced. What do you do?
Speaker0: I think that's a great question. The first thing you should do is be prepared
Speaker0: way before it ever happened. Like know where your safe spot is in your home.
Speaker0: If you have a storm shelter, that's the best case scenario.
Speaker0: If you don't have a storm shelter, like recognize which room in your home has
Speaker0: no exterior walls and is the farthest away from the outside.
Speaker0: Those are the things that I always encourage people to do. And it's not time
Speaker0: to think about that whenever the tornado warning happens, because you need to
Speaker0: just be able to know and go there.
Speaker0: So I think the best thing you could do if you live in those areas is to prep.
Speaker0: Now, if you're in your vehicle and a tornado is coming towards you,
Speaker0: see, that's something there needs to be that myth.
Speaker0: I need to find out of getting out of your car in the middle of a tornado and
Speaker0: getting in a ditch is safer than staying in your vehicle.
Speaker0: That's a really that's a hard one for me. And I mean, even then I think the
Speaker0: National Weather Service maybe even suggests that if that's the case,
Speaker0: get try to get out of a ditch.
Speaker0: I don't think I would ever do that just being around a lot of tornadoes.
Speaker0: But that would be a really fun myth to try to to try to bust.
Speaker1: How can you tell when a storm is truly dangerous versus just like loud and dramatic.
Speaker0: Yeah. I mean, the first thing you want to know is if this is supercell and all
Speaker0: a supercell is, is a storm that's rotating.
Speaker0: So you can look at radar and see that if the storm itself has rotation in it.
Speaker0: And then, you know, you start looking for all the signs of a tornado.
Speaker0: One of the first things you'll see is a wall cloud come down,
Speaker0: which is just basically any lowering that comes down from the base of one of those supercells.
Speaker0: And a lot of times you can really tell a tornado will happen because when that
Speaker0: wall cloud comes down, you can already see that wall cloud cranking,
Speaker0: just spinning and spinning and you're waiting for that contact with the ground,
Speaker0: which makes it officially a tornado at that point. But yeah, you're you're just.
Speaker0: The tornadoes are it's insane when you you go through those stages of,
Speaker0: you know, you know, spinning storm, then a wall cloud, then a funnel cloud and a tornado.
Speaker0: And, you know, sometimes I could take three or four hours for a storm,
Speaker0: sometimes like five minutes.
Speaker1: It's insane. I was wondering what that waiting game is like.
Speaker1: Like, do you spend a lot of time just sitting in the car hoping that one's coming?
Speaker1: I mean, or is it is it just hours?
Speaker0: Oh, it's hours. Average storm chase day, you know, people only see the exciting part.
Speaker0: It's like 14 hours of waiting and doing nothing for two hours of excitement, adrenaline.
Speaker0: You know, there's there's special days where there's like multiple tornadoes
Speaker0: and they happen all day long. But most of the time you're just sitting and waiting
Speaker0: and trying to be patient.
Speaker0: And yeah, that's the hard part. Sometimes I always say you just drive around
Speaker0: in circles a lot when you're storm chasing, trying to be patient in the beginning.
Speaker0: It's the thing I have the hardest doing. I don't sit still. So it makes it a
Speaker0: little difficult at times. You don't seem like a person that sits still for long. Not at all.
Speaker1: So what's the biggest myth about storm safety that people still believe?
Speaker0: Every town. This is it. You come in, you're a storm. Oh, they never hit our
Speaker0: town. They come right to our town. They go up. They go over our town and come down.
Speaker0: Yeah, that doesn't ever happen. But every town that I go in says that.
Speaker0: Or there's like, oh, we have a river here and it won't, you know,
Speaker0: it won't cross the river. So there's a lot of those types of things.
Speaker0: Or we live in the mountains.
Speaker0: There's not, tornadoes don't happen in the mountains. That's a lie.
Speaker0: I've seen tornadoes and mountains and bluffs. I mean, they happen everywhere.
Speaker0: So I think that's one of the biggest myths.
Speaker0: A lot of people get very comfortable because, you know, their town hasn't ever
Speaker0: been hit, but that's not because it can't get hit. It just means a tornado hasn't came there yet.
Speaker1: Myth busted. Cautionary tale. Nice.
Speaker0: Edgar, thank you so much for coming on MythBits. This has been so fascinating to hear what you do.
Speaker0: I mean, it sounds a little crazy, as dangerous as it is, but hearing what you
Speaker0: go through, it's just Something I would never do.
Speaker1: Bulls. Tori, in another life, you're a storm chaser. You just have a kid and a family now.
Speaker0: I would never do that. I would never do that. Yeah, I had a lot of fun. Thank you so much.
Speaker1: Those were actually some really good tips. And next time I'm out in a tornado
Speaker1: alley, now I know what to do.
Speaker0: That was awesome. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker1: Thank you, everybody, for listening. Stay weird. Stay safe. and don't go running
Speaker1: through graveyards if there's a lightning storm.
Speaker0: Don't run outside during a storm.
Speaker1: No golf, nothing. But you can stay weird. Till next time. Later, Misfits.
Speaker0: See you, Misfits.