An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) ??? Strange thing happened ... I stopped to fill the car with gas,

[RKP5637]

put in the debit card and all, pushed select, and all the select lights kept flashing ... went inside to attendant, said no problem, try again ... same thing, went back in, manager was there, said no problem ... but then looked more in depth at his console, said something weird was happening, all of his pumps were going on and off line ... he reinitiated the system, waited a minute, and it cleared, ... tried again, filled up per pump OK.

Got in car, noticed gas gauge was still on empty, only had a few miles left, had appt., so figured I would go back into station after my appt. and tell them no gas pumped, although gallons showed on pump. (I was thinking, no way are they going to believe that one ...)

Driving along to appt., I also noticed dash instruments, electronic dash, were screwed up. ... also had my navigator on, it was all screwed up and giving wrong directions.

Restarted the car, things came back to normal, showed my gas OK. ... restarted the navigator, it came back to normal and I went on my way. I was telling my friend in the car, did we just have some kind of EMP or what.

Just saying, it was weird. It seems more than a coincidence. This car is very reliable, never any funky problems, and the navigator is always on target. It seems the electronics got scrambled at the gas station and my car.

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1. Either that or a close encounter of the second kind

Though it may be the two are one in the same. Where were you? Near any military installations? There was an intense solar flare yesterday http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/08/260854919/solar-flare-will-hit-earth-thursday-northern-lights-may-expand-south

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2. This happened last month, south FL. I've been back in that area, never had it

Last edited Fri Jan 10, 2014, 04:36 PM - Edit history (1)

happen again, and neither the car nor the navigator have malfunctioned since then. It was the coincidence of all of the gas pumps and computer malfunctioning at the gas station plus my car and the navigator all at once. It just seemed too much of a coincidence. No, there are no military installations where I was that I know of.

Maybe it was some type of test going on, maybe a military airplane flew overhead with something turned on. One place I worked once had a lot of microwave equipment and sometimes it use to get out of whack and disturb some electronics, for example.

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3. The GPS giving incorrect data would seem to indicate a solar flare

Going on that theory, the satellite that provides positioning information to your GPS may have been hit with the coronal mass ejection as it headed toward Earth and you at the station.

If the GPS had just malfunctioned, the disruption could have been a more local source, but because it gave directions that were incorrect makes me believe that it was receiving fouled data. Had you been using the GPS just prior to stopping at the station? CMEs can travel up to "1000 km/second (2 million mph)". http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/cme.html

So it passed through the satellite your GPS was using and then you and the station just seconds later. My conclusion at any rate.

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4. Yes, I had been using the GPS just prior to the gas station and it was working OK, when I

left the gas station the GPS was scrambled, giving wrong directions, etc. So, I stopped, powered it off/on, reset the address and it was then fine.

[siligut]

5. This has been a fun mystery. It is the GPS that convinced me it was solar activity

If one of the three satellites the GPS was using was disrupted and failed to relay data, the GPS wouldn't know its exact position, thus the wrong directions. The GPS satellites are 6,000 to 12,000 miles away and a coronal mass ejection can travel up to 33,333 miles per second. So the CME hit the satellite and the gas station just milliseconds apart. Makes sense to me, more so than aliens or surface microwaves.

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6. Yes, this all makes sense to me too! Thanks!

[fadedrose]

7. Dials screwed up

so you can't confirm there was 'missing time" ...

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8. Nope, I was right on time for the appt., but it was really strange, I also have

a heavy scientific background, I'm not too prone to magical thinking type stuff.