Glowing something on my floor.

[Moontanman]

I sat here tonight, after running the battery down on my cell phone arguing with the power company that i hadn't asked for the power to be turned off, and i noticed a glowing streak on the floor.

 

Very very dim, glowing blueish streak on the hardwood floor.

 

it was about 3 centimeters long and maybe 1 centimeter wide. very blurry borders, the brightest area was the center. very hard to see, any light at all kept me from seeing it for several minutes.

 

The house was built in 1936, the floors are from that first construction. Not a damp place or anything like that, i investigated it until the power came back on. No trace of anything once the lights came back on.

 

What could it have been?

 

it looked like radium... can't have been that? could it?

[Keith*]

...What could it have been?...

 

1) Best chance it was incoming light from an exterior source.

Turn off the lights again, and get your eye or white paper down on the location.

 

2) Old smear of phosphorescent paint. Wipe on a section with an eraser and again shut off the lights, to check.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Keith*

[zapatos]

it looked like radium... can't have been that? could it?

Certainly sounds like it could be radium. Right color, old floor, and was previously pretty common.

[CaptainPanic]

I would do as Keith said: take a white sheet of paper and place it on that spot: it should make that spot more bright if it is a reflection, and less bright if it is coming from a source in your floor.

 

It might be that something from outside caused that light.

 

Certainly sounds like it could be radium. Right color, old floor, and was previously pretty common.

Could you elaborate a little on this? It sounds like you suggest that in the years leading up to WWII, people deliberately put radium in their floors?

 

I googled for it, and all I found was that some companies (esp. in Paris) manufactured radium products, which left some residues in the floors. We're talking about only about a hundred cases in Paris. How would that same situation ever occur in Moontanman's house, which is on another continent, and was built after the Radium craze was over?

[michel123456]

Were you awake?

[Moontanman]

Were you awake?

 

 

At the time due to the power company I was beginning to think it was a nightmare but yes i was awake...

 

1) Best chance it was incoming light from an exterior source.

Turn off the lights again, and get your eye or white paper down on the location.

 

2) Old smear of phosphorescent paint. Wipe on a section with an eraser and again shut off the lights, to check.

 

 

I tried those things, it was not a reflection of light, I tried to scrub it off the floor, what ever it was it appeared to be under the many layers of varnish on the floor. White paper simply covered it, it was so dim it was difficult to see straight on, kind of like when star gazing you can see dimmer stars out of your peripheral vision.

 

I googled for it, and all I found was that some companies (esp. in Paris) manufactured radium products, which left some residues in the floors. We're talking about only about a hundred cases in Paris. How would that same situation ever occur in Moontanman's house, which is on another continent, and was built after the Radium craze was over?

 

 

I did a little bit of poking around about this house when I first moved in, it was owned originally by a Doctor, whose family went on to build a tenement next door for all the farm workers they employed, where the tract houses were is just now an empty field but you can see the places the houses used to be in the various concrete pieces left behind.

 

I'm not sure if any of that is connected but the house is nearly 80 years old and has unique features for the area like a full basement, no doubt used to escape the summer heat back in the day...

 

I spent 2 hours in the dark investigating this streak, nothing else to do

[StringJunky]

At the time due to the power company I was beginning to think it was a nightmare but yes i was awake...

 

 

 

 

I tried those things, it was not a reflection of light, I tried to scrub it off the floor, what ever it was it appeared to be under the many layers of varnish on the floor. White paper simply covered it, it was so dim it was difficult to see straight on, kind of like when star gazing you can see dimmer stars out of your peripheral vision.

 

 

 

 

I did a little bit of poking around about this house when I first moved in, it was owned originally by a Doctor, whose family went on to build a tenement next door for all the farm workers they employed, where the tract houses were is just now an empty field but you can see the places the houses used to be in the various concrete pieces left behind.

 

I'm not sure if any of that is connected but the house is nearly 80 years old and has unique features for the area like a full basement, no doubt used to escape the summer heat back in the day...

 

I spent 2 hours in the dark investigating this streak, nothing else to do

 

I wonder if you could set up a digital camera directly over the area and then do an exposure in the pitch dark ? Placing a bit of photographic paper placed over the area and developed would be better but that's likely not to hand

[zapatos]

Could you elaborate a little on this? It sounds like you suggest that in the years leading up to WWII, people deliberately put radium in their floors?

 

I googled for it, and all I found was that some companies (esp. in Paris) manufactured radium products, which left some residues in the floors. We're talking about only about a hundred cases in Paris. How would that same situation ever occur in Moontanman's house, which is on another continent, and was built after the Radium craze was over?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply they were purposely putting it on floors, just that Moon's floor was in place long enough to pick up radium when it was still in use in the US.

 

It is also interesting to note that the home was previously owned by a doctor, considering radium was used as a medical treatment.

 

Radium was once an additive in products such as toothpaste, hair creams, and even food items due to its supposed curative powers...

In the U.S., nasal radium irradiation was also administered to children to prevent middle-ear problems or enlarged tonsils from the late 1940s through the early 1970s...

Radium was formerly used in self-luminous paints for watches, nuclear panels, aircraft switches, clocks, and instrument dials...

Radium was still used in dials as late as the 1960s...

...radium is luminescent, glowing a faint blue...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium

 

The factory mentioned here is maybe 400-500 miles from Moon's home.

The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark paint at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey around 1917. The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium by licking their paintbrushes to sharpen them; some also painted their fingernails and teeth with the glowing substance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

Edited November 16, 2012 by zapatos

[John Cuthber]

Go ask the local high school if you can borrow a Geiger counter or an electroscope.

[Externet]

Geiger counters do not work on firefly guts squished on the floor, or do they ?

[Moontanman]

Geiger counters do not work on firefly guts squished on the floor, or do they ?

 

 

Probably not... but I tried to scrub it up and it was still there. I haven't bothered to look at it since that night.