Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Faking a UFO with Ammonia and Electricity

crrider13 - 3-2-2010 at 16:56

I've looked everywhere for a good forum to help me answer this question. I hope you guys can.

In Season 6 episode 10 of MacGyver he uses an ammonia/electricity plasma generator to make a lights that look like a UFO. The way they explained it is that you create a current in the direct path of the ammonia fumes and this causes the "UFO"

A screenshot from the movie:
http://img694.imageshack.us/i/macgyversammoniaelectri.jpg/

A model that I built in about 2 min to explain my question:
http://img192.imageshack.us/i/myammoniaelectricityufo.jpg/

Now I realize that the screenshot has some obvious special effects and that just about everything on tv is fake but there are alot of things on MacGyver that do work and since I'm a cautious person I'd like to know if this theory works before I try it and possibly hurt myself.

franklyn - 4-2-2010 at 21:55

Not really sure what it's about, it seems that
very high voltage corona promotes oxidation
of ammonia vapor by air. A blue color would
be produced by ionized nitrogen. You'll need
a TV flyback transformer at the least.

.