back to article UFO damages Lincolnshire wind turbine

Lincolnshire ufologists are combing the area around the Conisholme wind farm for evidence to back their theory that one of the turbines was on Sunday seriously damaged by a "mystery aircraft", as the BBC euphemistically puts it. The turbine - one of 20 operated at the site by Ecotricity - lost one 66ft (20m) blade and suffered …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you're old enough...

    ...you will recall the Emley Moor TV mast falling down one winter. At the time the official explantion was that the weight of ice.

    Yes there was a lot of ice on it, it was an icy cold stormy winter night, but that wasn't what brought the mast down. Not long after the Emley incident the identical mast at Belmont was fitted with fifty tons of chains dangling down the middle of the mast, effectively this damped down any harmonic vibrations caused by the wind. That's right, the collapse was deemed to have been caused by catastrophic harmonic vibrations set up by the wind (Tacoma Narrows bridge anybody?). Of course the powers that be never shouted about this because it was convenient to blame the weather rather than a design flaw.

    Blaming the weather wouldn't really wash in the case of a wind farm. After all the turbine should surely have been designed to cope with bad weather. Blaming the wind for the failure of a wind turbine would probably cause outrage in the pages of the Daily Fail. However once you've eliminated manufacturing flaws, design flaws, operational errors and the weather there's not a lot left appart from UFOs and criminal damage. Claiming the latter would lead to a police investigation which wouldn't necessarilly generate the sort of publicity that they want. Of course they wouldn't be so silly as to blame a UFO, but if somebody else conveniently mentions the possibility and they refused to rule it out what harm could that do?

  2. g00p
    Stop

    lincolnshire???

    come on. my fellas from cleethorpes, and seriously, if that was true about the ufos - if they looked down at earth wondering where next to go on holiday im pretty sure lincolnshire would be in the lower half of their list...

    mind u...i think clee and grimsby are at the bottom end of the "places in lincolnshire you'd go if it were the last place on earth" list :P

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    No need to be alarmed...

    Happens all the time

    http://www.responsiblewind.org/docs/wind_turbine_accidents_in_pictures.pdf

  4. Sam Tana
    Alien

    The real answer is...

    ...scrap metal thieves .... from the Planet Zob.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Defense Shield

    At last -- a UFO defensive shield that works. Build more wind turbines!!!!!!!!!!

  6. 4irw4y
    Unhappy

    4irw4y

    a) locals' party> firewurx> boom-bang;

    b) test flight, ok, lights and flashes - why isn't it natural due to a rapid tech progress;

    c) UFO

    d) Russians

    aa) a cannon grandma of about 200 y.o., "ok, let's shoot the sky"> laws of ballistcs;

    b) no comments, quite possible;

    c) plz ld data> what was the distance between windmill and object when it was caught at sight, was it straightly forwarding towards the field.

    d) They had a couple of the like accidents before and now Russian UFO engineers build in alcotesters. It's impossible to crash into a windmill being sober. + sure for anyone it needs no skills to skip into UK airspace over the whole Europe, what are the taxes paid for?

    b) is more trustworthy, isn't it?

    Sad because it seems to be boring without Russians.

    73

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sadly unlikely to be so

    I would suggest that the vane was probably due to the very cold weather and icing up. Many years ago there were problems with what was thought to be metal fatigue of aicraft props but evaluation found it was poor metals combined with cold. I would therefore respectfully suggest that this is evaluated to see if this was the cause, if one blade broke then the next could suffer.

    Lorries in Alaska have cold metal problems all the time.

  8. That's IT

    Found Any?

    Yes, def blinding the drone's guiding camera by the fwx. Are any bollocks found available at auction?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    @ boltar

    I was with ya' 'til you started in on the mechanical failure foolishness. Up 'til then you making sense. Sounds like the crazy are out now.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's simple fizzicks

    The Turbine was "Freewheeling" in the breeze - well NO generator to soak up the energy, no brake to keep it stopped, and in a STRONG wind - it simply oversped and disintergrated.

    I am surprised that no one caught onto this simply by comparing how one of these normally spin, and how dreadfully fast this one was spinning - remembering it's nto a desk top fan, these blades are the length of city blocks.

    Rather ungay if you ask me.

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