SHAWANO, WI (WTAQ) – A Shawano County mystery from Sunday night may be solved.
Flashing colors in the sky and a loud hum, that is what many Shawano residents reported witnessing around 9:00pm Sunday.
Brian Manthey, Spokesperson for We Energies said it started when a tree limb fell on a power line South of Highway H.
“During that time you had this breaker go on and off and those flashes may have occurred with that tree limb still on there.”
He says that breaker is called a recloser. When something is on the power line, it goes on and off three different times to see if the item fell off or if it needs to shut power off.
Manthey said that explains the three different flashes in a 20 second period, as far as the bright red and blue that was seen in the Shawano area skies, there was a reason for that too.
“It was probably a piece of equipment that would have burned and in that case, you would have gotten a different composition of the material and a different color.
He said the weather conditions may have made the colors brighter.
We Energies confirmed that over 1,600 people were without power for a period of time, but according to their outage map, most of the power was restored within two hours.
