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The very real – and rare – phenomenon of lights appearing in the sky just before an earthquake strikes has been solved. They are not UFOs. Instead, researchers say the lights likely are the result of crystalline structure of the magmatic stones, which when subjected to intense pressure releases electrical energy.

According to the website designtrend.com, the new findings have been published in the journal Seismological Research Letters. Researchers analyzed 65 documented occurrences of earthquake lights from 1600 to the present, among them the Great San Francisco Earthquake in which people saw streams of light running along the ground two nights preceding that great earthquake.

The study noted an electrical current that flows out of some earthquake fault lines as the composite plates that form the crust grind against each other. When this stress-induced electrical current reach Earth's surface, they create a glow.

Background: Rare lights in the air before or during an earthquake have been noted by eyewitnesses for centuries but, have been mistaken for UFOs or dismissed as hallucinations.