http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/nov/16/man-says-30-foot-monster-lurking-canals-madeira-be/news-metro/

It's hard to tell from the video, both a big snake and a manatee are consistant with the bit of tape linked to. The guy doesn't strike me as a very helpful witness. I'll have to call my cousin, Robert the Red, who lives up in Madeira and ask him what he thinks. He'll probably blame it on some kid of capitalist plot.

Last year there was some very unusual atmospheric phenomena up there, it was some kind of really weird electrical disturbance that hit while he just happened to be up at 3 or 4 in the morning. He described it as a kind of "flash and a loud buzz" that caused the lights to flicker and lit up the entire neighborhood like daylight, but there was no thunder, and no apparent electrical damage or outages (no, not a transformer blowing up, that's a common event in Florida). It was clearly meteorological (a cold front was coming through) but not like anything he'd ever seen before, or that I had ever experienced either. We were both raised by the water on Florida's West Coast. It's a strange place, with strange weather.

He couldn't find anyone to corroborate his sighting until he talked to the night clerk at a nearby convenience store who also witnessed the "event", from inside. It scared the hell out of him, he didn't even want to talk about it, but seemed relieved someone else had seen it. Robert called it "St Elmos's Fire", although that wasn't it, I saw that once during a storm at sea and it has no auditory effects, and is a more localized phenomenon.

I've noted some odd electrical effects by the water on the Gulf Coast. On one overcast but hot muggy day (high humidity, but no precipitation or thunderstorm activity) a group of us at the beach noted a very high electrical charge in the air, I could feel my skin tingling and everyone's hair stood up on end, like standing too close to a big Van de Graaf generator. In a few minutes it dissipated.

New phenomena like "pixies" and "sprites" tell us the atmosphere still has surprises in store for us.