Why Did the Lights go Out in the Superdome? [VIDEO]

Perhaps while you were watching the Super Bowl last night you noticed the blackout that occurred during the middle of the game? My mind raced a little when it happened, I wasn't really sure what to think, neither did anyone else in the room.

Of course, one of the first things on many people's minds was an imminent terrorist attack which was quickly ruled out. Weather of course was ruled out fairly quickly, since it was a clear 66 degree evening in New Orleans at the stadium. The next most obvious possibility was that it was some sort of problem with the power grid, a surge or malfunction of some kind. The energy provider at the super dome is Entergy, they tweeted in their defense immediately following the outage, "Power issue at the Super Dome appears to be in the customer's side."

Here's what happened: NFL football games drink up a lot of electricity, and power failures at games are not uncommon. Two years ago, a game between the 49ers and the Steelers was delayed twice due to blackouts, it was caused by a transformer exploding just outside the stadium.

More details came in that suggested it was an "outside power surge" that caused the blackout. By the time the game started half an hour after the Superdome went out, it remained unclear what caused the surge. It might have been lightning, but the weather was nice in New Orleans. More than likely, tons of high-power electrical devices in the stadium were switched on or off, and sent a surge of electricity through the wires, overloading a circuit and creating a situation were a transformer probably blew. Or who knows, it could have been Beyonce's "bootylicious" performance?

What do you think? Let us know by commenting below.