Is this lightning or something else???

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salm10

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Hi all,
I have to look into this situation where a steel cable bike lock was used on a fence gate. The fence is grounded with ground rods, and it surrounds a cell tower. The fence gate was recently installed and there was a lightning storm after the gate installation. No one noticed the damage to the cable lock until just recently. There was no apparent corresponding damage to the fence posts. I have four scenarios but all are just conjecture on my part:
Lightning.
Arc Welder.
Inductive coupling.
Vandalism.
I am curious what others think and if anyone has any experience with this.front gate cable lock oct 2012 004.jpgfront gate cable lock oct 2012 007.jpg
 
I would have expected that currents induced by lighnting or welders would have been more likely to flow between the zinc plated metal parts of the fence than a plastic insulated cable.
 
Lightning. There was thermal damage to the plastic cable sheath but the heat was not enough to visibly damage the galvanized steel.

One lightning job, the lightning came down a tree, blew it apart, jumped two feet to the chain link fence and travelled ~ 80 ft down the fence to the house, crossed over ~ 2 ft of cedar clapboard on the house, blew that off the house, right to the 200 amp underground meter box where it entered the house and blew out some sensitive stuff, the boiler controls, phones.
 
I think some aliens were trying to use the cell tower to phone home. They had to blow the lock off the gate with their phasers. The pitting and discoloration of the galvanized surface is characteristic of the X-Ray wavelength used by the Tralfamadorians.



Or else it was lightning. Either way.
 
Only one place on that lock cable with heat damage?

If so I vote for vandalism.

Lightning would have an entrance and exit wound wouldn't it? I really doubt it entered and left the same place.
 
It looks to me like the cable was burned in two places. I don't see anyway that lightning is going to go in one of these locations and out the other. I vote for someone with a torch screwing with it.
 
Look at the second picture, with the lightning travelling horizontally along the fence it's very possible it entered at the metal combination lock end and exited through the plastic sheath. The horizontally travelling wave hits an air gap between the fence post and gate post, bridged by the double loop of steel lock cable. The second picture shows the symmetrically balanced exit damage at two points, equally distributed.

The damage to the plastic is I^2*T with T being very short. To cause similar visible damage to the underlying galv steel, incident energy would have to be > 1000 times that necessary to melt the plastic.
 
Kids with a cigarette lighter and nothing better to do.
 
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