Careers & Education

SC Lightning Strike Sparks Playful 'Monster' Conspiracy

Aug. 12, 2020

Photos posted by the City of Beaufort/Town of Port Royal Fire Department showing a tree burning internally from a lightning strike had social media users seeing monstrous claw marks.

By Mark Price

Source The Charlotte Observer

This photo shows a unique event when a tree burns inside the bark after a lightning strike.

What appeared to be long, flaming claw marks were found Sunday on a South Carolina tree, giving social media anecdotal “evidence” of monsters.

The discovery was made in coastal Beaufort, and a photo posted on Facebook shows a large water oak tree with red gashes that came in groups of threes ... sort of like the claws of an Allosaurus dinosaur.

It was a lightning strike that created the marks, according to the Beaufort/Town of Port Royal Fire Department, about 16 miles north of Hilton Head. The strike ignited the interior of the tree, causing the long scars to glow eerily and eminate wisps of smoke.

Fire department officials say the post has so far reached 71,000, with 700 shares on Facebook, and commenters couldn’t help but point out it didn’t look like any lightning strike they’d ever seen.

Multiple people called it “scary,” with Marjorie Thompson puzzling over why only the tree’s inside was burning. The outside seemed almost fireproof.

“Looks like red claw marks. It’s a cover-up!” Raphael Pizeno posted on the department’s Facebook page.

“The powers of God, not science,” Donte Reese wrote.

Investigators say the tree is located in a wooded area behind the Battery Point subdivision in Beaufort, and the firefighters had the flames doused quickly.

News of the incident comes just four weeks after a fire department in Wales, Maine, reported an equally strange lightning strike on a tree. In that case, lightning set the center of the tree on fire and a roaring blaze was recorded shooting from a long crack in the tree trunk.

Social media commenters called that flaming gash “a gateway to hell.”

A lightning strike can unleash anywhere from 100 million to 1 billion volts, and heat the air to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NOAA. So far this year, there have been at least a dozen lightning fatalities in the U.S., including three in the Carolinas, according to the National Lighting Safety Council.

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