Venezuela's Mysterious Catatumbo Lightning Phenomenon :

The point where the Catatumbo river meets Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, a constant lightning storm illuminates the sky for around 10 hours a night, almost half of the nights out of the year. The storm is pretty much silent, with the lightning going from cloud to cloud and very rarely touching down on earth. Lightning bolts form at around 280 times per hour during a storm, and over the course of a year it is estimated there are about 1.2 million electric discharges.

 No one is quite sure how long this has been going on or why. The lightning storm was mentioned in a poem written in 1597, and has been part of local folklore for as long as locals can remember. It is suspected that methane gas rises from Catatumbo bogs at the mouth of the river and mixes with storm clouds coming off the Andes, creating this unbelievable spectacle.

 

 It is so bright, it can be seen hundreds of miles away and is used by ships to navigate. It is also suspected to be the number one ozone producing agent in the world (unfortunately the type of ozone isn't the same as the kind being depleted in the earth's atmosphere).

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