Mystery Object #4 ANSWER

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In my last video, I showed you an unusual miners' safety lamp with a blue rather than transparent glass screen and asked you to guess what it was used for. Such lamps were used by British Air Raid Protection (ARP) organizations during the Second World War (primarily during the 'Blitz' of 1940-1941) to mark the positions of ruptured gas mains without igniting them, the blue colour preventing German pilots from spotting and targeting the lamps from high altitudes.
*Note: I did manage to find one of these on eBay, but for some reason it was flagged and confiscated by eBay's Global Shipping Service, who issued refunds to both me and the seller and kept the lamp...
SOURCES:
museumcrush.org/a-visual-hist...
www.ww2civildefence.co.uk/blo...

[@jeffarmstrong1308]

Blue lights are often used in backstage areas of theatres because the light is not as easily seen from the auditorium as other colours. I first discovered this 50 years ago while working in amateur theatricals but never got an explanation for the difference. FWIW white light is surprisingly visible in low light situations (eg during a blackout) at very great distances. I have no trouble accepting that a white lamp would have been visible by someone aboard a Luftwaffe bomber.

[@cwtrain]

And here I was so sure it was to help with spotting uranium ore or something.

[@kaitlyn__L]

The Blitz mostly targeted southern English cities and industrial towns, but northern English cities like Manchester and even some Scottish ones like Glasgow were hit over the Blitz as well. A small fraction compared to what London got, but still enough to leave their marks on the cities today.

[@SeanBZA]

Yes blue light is scattered by the atmosphere, especially when the air is high in particulates, like say with fires in the area. Aslo the lamps do double duty, delineating both the area with broken gas mains with light, but also with the regular noise as the inner area lights off a gas concentration that is high, showing that the area is down wind of the leak.

[@keithmoore5306]

as weak of an intensity as an oil lamp has i seriously doubt a bomber at altitude would be able to detect a normal lamp sitting in a field with no light sources within 20 miles let alone with flak gun flashes popping off!!!

[@SeanBZA]

@@keithmoore5306 But at least people would see the blue light, and hopefully not stop and light a cigarette there.......

[@najroe]

​@@keithmoore5306 the human eye can determine the direction of a light source if only a few photons reach it if the surrounding area is dark, that means an oil lamp like this can be "seen" couple kilometer away under ideal conditions, I have "easily" seen cigarette glow three hundred meters away. That is much less light than a lamp like this gives.

[@keithmoore5306]

@@najroei come from southeast Kentucky and have seen those regular ones in action at night trust me a bomber above 10,000 feet wouldn't stand a chance in unholy hell of seeing that weak ass flame especially when you factor in other light sources! hell a carbide headlamp is nye on impossible to spot past 600 feet straight across a hollar if you know what you're looking for!!

[@najroe]

@@keithmoore5306 you have forgotten about it being illegal to even have a candle showing in a window during the Blitz, everything was pitch black. if your eyes are adapted to the total dark for say half hour they become extremely good at picking up even minute pinprick of light, as I said I have seen cigarette glow at over 300m and even hint of the face of the smoker there is actually evidence of the eye being able to register just a single photon. but it gets filtered out as "noise" by the brain, a handful of photons from the same area WILL be registered though.

[@JCWren]

I've binge watched all your videos, and I don't recall you having done one on the blow torch you have on the lower right shelf (that's stage right, BTW :) ). Those torches are a lot of fun. Did I miss it, or have you not covered those?

[@bradleyeric14]

Excellent. I knew it was blackout connected but you got me!

[@Berowinger]

For the same reason, blue emergency beacons for police and fire fighters were introduced in Germany prior to WWII by the Nazi regime. Until now, all emergency vehicles in Germany use more or less exclusively blue beacons. Also blue is not allowed for any other lights in traffic, so it's quite distinct. Source: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundumkennleuchte?wprov=sfla1

[@geoffreypiltz271]

Blue flashing lamps for police vehicles are standard in the UK. An elsewhere?

[@alltat]

Blue (sometimes combined with red) lights seems to be a more or less global standard today.

[@willj1598]

That's funny, I work in mining and we use blue lights now as part of our alarm systems, to indicate the presence of hazardous gases..I wonder if there is a distant link?

[@evilgibson]

Gee, you think?

[@richardmillhousenixon]

Probably has more to do with blue being the pseudo-standard for health hazards. Like the NFPA fire diamond, red is flammability, yellow is reactivity and blue is health hazards

[@richardmillhousenixon]

​@@evilgibsonyou don't have to be an ass, dude.

[@seanmcmanus4243]

I figured it would be something related to WWII! Make's sense that it would be during the blitz :p Cool lil lantern

[@nunya___]

I thought it was to detect kryptonite. ...are your sure it wasn't to to detect kryptonite????

[@b_ks]

Those are the green lanterns.

[@cycklist]

The blitz wasn't just aimed at England. Wales and Scotland were targeted too.

[@FoulOwl2112]

Thanks professor. Will this be on the test?

[@John_Smith_Dumfugg]

Love your videos!!!

[@johnbaker1256]

Also blue lights were normally used to mark police stations, so the blue lamp would indicate that it was there for official purposes.

[@fredblonder7850]

I’m a little surprised that it didn’t also have a very wide brim at the top to angle the light out horizontally.

[@WgCdrLuddite]

Air Raid PRECAUTIONS.

[@Oldmankingspiffy]

No wonder our flashlight in the military had a blue lens cover

[@01cthompson]

The home guard was instructed to use blue filters on their lights too.

[@curtw8827]

Blue lights or flags are used on railroads to mark trains that are not to be moved.

[@williampollock1274]

I wonder how many of them are left. So many inventive things have been lost to time.☹️

[@Zbigniew_Nowak]

There were also electric light bulbs in this color.

[@keithmoore5306]

Gillies, i seriously doubt a bomber at altitude would see a regular lantern on the ground especially with flak guns firing at them!!!it's not exactly a mag-lite!!

[@hekatoncheiros208]

In a bombing raid, every light on the ground was out. No street lights, no vehicle lights, no house lighting, just total darkness. Even if no raiders were around, blackout regulations were rigorously enforced. I can imagine why they took this precaution under the circumstances.

[@keithmoore5306]

@@hekatoncheiros208those regs are pre war set up by shrews afraid of their own shadows and overreacting to perceived theoretical incorrect notions that nobody thought to modify after reality showed they were useless!! reality is no bomber will get close enough to possibly see the light from a safety lamp (or normal house lighting!!) before flak guns and searchlights kick in drowning out that light! trust me i'm from southeast Kentucky and have plenty of experience with those oil lamps they're not that bright for something you may be familiar with they equal a child's nightlight in brightness at best!!

[@justindunlap1235]

You'd be surprised how visible a single light source is in the pitch black. I've spotted people with headlamps while flying over the Cascades in a small plane early in the morning.

[@maxpayne2574]

I saw a number of people guess in that general area.

[@FrankMuchnok]

I thought it was the first prototype of the blacklight.😉😉

[@RichardIresonMusician]

There are many levels of "wrong" and I think my guess was very high up on the wrong meter!😂

[@thorsten2022]

the garmen fierdepartments switcht from red to blue warning liet for the same reson

[@rockets4kids]

Your hint pretty much gave this one away.

[@najroe]

And the opposite of this is why we use red lights on rear of vehicles, the dust, water spray... Has less effect on red than on other colors

[@glenndennis6801]

When it is dark everywhere, it is surprising how far even the smallest white light can be seen. Just look at the tiny navigation lights (red and green) on recreation boats. These can be seen at two miles on a clear dark night.

[@glenndennis6801]

So wrong reply

[@glenndennis6801]

Sorry.

[@CathodeRayNipplez]

😎

[@susanlodges48]

I'm the only one who found the correct answer.

[@michaelfrench3396]

No! I feel cheated! I need like another 25 minutes about who made them, why they needed to be made etc etc. Come on man. It's Sunday morning. I've come to expect a certain type of video from you specifically for my Sunday morning viewing. 😉 JK, I'm sure we're going to get another full length video about these eventually. Have a great day!

[@CanadianMacGyver]

I’ve already made a full-length video on miners’ safety lamps; there’s a link in the description of yesterday’s question video :)

[@michaelfrench3396]

@@CanadianMacGyverI saw the cool miners lamp video. I've got to go back and watch it again though to see the reference to these ones with the purple filters

[@davefellhoelter1343]

original Black Lights! I have a Red oil Lamp most likely from the 30's/40's road Hazzard maker.

[@jeffdroog]

First!

[@User_Un_Friendly]

For those of you already jaded by the most terrifying horror movies, and the goriest slasher movies, I'm recommending the BBC series Danger UXB. Based partially on the memoirs of a sapper during the Blitz, the protagonist Brian Ash is working in London defusing unexploded bombs. The very thought of taking a chisel and hammer to a bomb full of a few hundred kilos of high explosives designed very much with malice aforethought by fiendishly clever and malicious Nazi armorers to kill the hapless British sapper tasked with defusing this evil device...it's quite traumatizing viewing. 😮😮😮. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!🫣🫣🫣

[@01cthompson]

I agree. Great series.