Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/watch-lightning-hit-the-washin.html
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Can Trump be next?
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You know, if I wasn’t an atheist, I’d consider that a message. Also, if those soldiers hadn’t been there to suppress American citizens, they wouldn’t have been struck by lightning.
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Close but no cigar.
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Yeah, it’s giving us something to think about all right. Between this and the flag that got ripped in half a couple of days back, it’s like someone is trying to tell us something.
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Smells like burnt orange…
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Just me or is the video missing from the story page?
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In all seriousness, lightning strikes have had to have happened to the Monument before, right? I mean, just based on the giant-freestanding-structure in a flat plain geometry of the area.
Atlas Obscura says it gets struck by lightning all the time, actually. But wait, there’s more! https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/washington-monument-lightning-rod
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Cops are tasering everything. Zap - Right got in the national penis.
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Just sharing my favorite lightning-related pic:
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Is this a sign or a portent? Asking for an evangelical.
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Wow! What a great pic & meme! 
One of my favorite lightning pics was taken near Belle Isle in Detroit:
Lightning struck the car mom and I were in one afternoon when I was about 8 yrs old. The entire car was thickly outlined in a mad, crackling electric (of course!) blue. Strangely enough, mom barely remembers it. Her mind musta blocked it, viewing it as a negative experience, but I thought it was an exciting AF adventure.
A neighbor used to do a giant fireworks display every 4th of July, and one year our pal Ms V had driven across town to join us. A storm came rolling in, and everyone in the neighborhood hoped it would quickly pass so that the show would go on. The 3 of us trooped out onto the front porch to watch the storm when we learned that Ms V enjoys that as much as we do. There was a lot of thunder, and the afternoon sky became a threatening, spooky charcoal color. Lightning began happening, and some of it appeared to be hitting only blocks away. We were ooh’ing and ahh’ing at the “fireworks” show Nature was giving us, when a huge bolt suddenly struck the front lawn next door with a porchshaking, earsplitting BOOM. Their oldest son came running out onto their porch as we were still uttering many "Whoa!"s and "Fuck!"s, asking us what had just happened. We told him, and he was in disbelief: “Where?! Where’d it hit?” “Right over there!” we told him, pointing. He started down the steps, then stopped partway, gobsmacked, when he saw the big charred spot. We shared his freaked out laughter, and all four of us agreed this particular storm would be best viewed from indoors.
The biggest lightning bolt I ever saw was Up North by Gaylord, near the tip of Michigan’s “mitten.” It was Aug ‘87, the “Harmonic Convergence.” My friends Mike, and Bill and I had eaten some really good acid for the occasion, and we were sitting in Bill’s car by his grandparents’ field when a huge storm hit. The rain was bucketing down, the thunder was loud AF, and the lightning was epic. I got out alone once so I could wander around in the rain, talk to The Universe (as you do while peaking during HC), and have a better view. We kept only peripherally seeing great lightning, which annoyed us. I was behind the car and facing the opposite direction as the car and the lads, when I silently asked The Universe, “What am I?”
As soon as the thought was complete, a vast bolt of lightning split the sky from left to right! It was so bright, everything was the brightest white imaginable, and in all directions! An all but deafening thunderclap immediately followed. It was magnificent but over so quickly, I had to ask aloud, “Is that all?!” as if it had been my question’s answer. Once the words were outta my mouth, another much longer, loud thunderclap began rolling around. I laughed.
I got back in the car right afterwards, and asked the guys what they’d thought of that massive lightning & thunder display. Surprised, they asked, “What do you mean?” They’d neither seen nor heard it! We’d quit listening to music long before, when the rain’s noise had ahem drowned it out; it was astonishing that they hadn’t at least heard the thunder - it was un-miss-able.
Guess it really was only for me after all.
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I was fully expecting a video as well.
This is as close as I could find:
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Came here for this. Did not disappoint.
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I was rooming with a Vietnamese guy in 72 when lightning struck a nearby building with an incredible BOOM!
Hui: Reminds me of home
Me: Oh, you have thunderstorms like this?
Hui: Nononono. The bombs.
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