| |
Some 25 to 30 years I
arrived a little early at a church in a park in Suffolk County Long
Island,N.Y.
So I sat in my car to wait for the wedding party to
arrive. A rain storm was just ending. Suddenly I saw a huge Ball of
crackling lightning bouncing along the ground..bouncing off trees and it
passed not 30 feet in front of my car now bouncing merrily across the
church lawn and down a shallow gully and into a wooded area where I lost
sight of it. I know for certain it was just a bit smaller than a VW Bug. I
was shocked and amazed as it was the first and last time I ever saw ball
lightning.It was a perfect ball of blue white crackling light.
Ed Rapisardi <Rap2times a wbtv.net>
Leesburg,
Fl USA - Friday, April 05, 2002 at 05:07:59 (PST) |
Years ago I had a personal
experience that may interest you. At the time, I was about 15 or 16 years
old, it was about 1960 or 61 and I was in HS at the time. I was at home in
Aliquippa, Pa working in my basement chem. lab. My passion was rockets
and rocket fuels, namely what we used to call "Caramel Candy" or a mixture
of sugar and Potassium Nitrate or my favorite at the time, powdered Zinc
and Flour of Sulfur. As it was, I was quite busy on a Saturday afternoon
mixing my largest batch of "candy " to date, roughly 3 or 4 pounds of the
stuff. I mixed it in small amounts to be sure if one of the inevitable
accidents were to occur I would only manage to smoke the basement and not
burn down the entire house.
My family and I lived on 7 acres in
the country so I could get away with making and launching rockets of all
sizes in my back yard. As it turns out, we had a well about 600 feet from
the house with a circuit breaker and pressure tank in the basement about
15 or 20 feet from my corner or "Space central" as it was called. That
particular day a rather nasty storm was raging with more than ample
thunder and lightning. As I was carrying my latest bowl of melted and
properly mixed fuel mixture, I heard and felt what I thought was a direct
hit on the house. The lights flickered and I heard something hissing
behind me. I dropped the bowl and turned around to see what appeared to
be a ball of blue/white something floating in the air.
What had
happened was the well house was hit by lightning which found the
electrical circuit to the house and the pressure tank in the basement.
The pressure switch was fused beyond recognition and the fuse box on the
wall was totally destroyed. It is my guess that the combination of super
heated gases from the melting metals, steam from the pressure switch and
probably a few other right occurring phenomenon were enough to form a
volley ball sized globe of ball lightning. As I remember it lasted
perhaps 2 or 3 seconds and managed to travel perhaps 5 to 8 feel before it
made one las hissing sound and disappeared. The smell of ozone lingered
for perhaps another 5 to 10 seconds as well as the stench of melted
insulation and tortured metal from the fuse box and the pressure switch.
All in all the show lasted 12 seconds from the time I heard and
felt the lightning strike until the final poof of the plasma ball.
As I look back at the moment, I feel extremely luck to have witnessed on
of nature's truly remarkable creations and only wish I could have been
able to capture it on film somehow.
This is my remembrance of the
moment, I am sure some details are missing, but I do have a vivid memory
of that ball of plasma bouncing around looking for someplace to land, I
suppose. Gladly, it was far enough away from my rocket fuels and
chemicals to not cause any damage. I went on to try to develop an
experiment or two that could reproduce the conditions of that day, but
could never get close. I build van DeGraff generators, Telsa coils,
carbon arcs into which I discharged the high voltages generated by the
Telsla coil but never succeeded in generating even a hint of ball
lightning, as far as I know.
I used the happenings of that day to
write an article for a writing class and used your pages as a source of
information to give some credibility to the existence of ball lightning.
I wanted to share my experience with you. So here it is.
Forbes D. Gilchrist <forbesg a concentric.net>
Chicago, IL USA - Friday, April 05, 2002 at 04:30:47 (PST)
|
In the Spring of 1979 while
traveling by car from Virginia to Massachusetts we passed through a severe
thunder storm with heavy rain. There were a number of close lightning
strikes. I personally saw a strike just ahead and to our right about 300
feet away along the tree line next to the highway. A ball of blue/white
light about 3 feet in diameter came straight towards the car from the
direction of the strike. There was a loud noise as it struck the right
front fender. I was seated in the front passenger seat and thought the
ball of light would hit me directly. It scared us quite a bit. I like to
watch storms but I don't want one of those things heading my way again.
Steve Solombrino <up4479 a hotmail com>
Wilmington, MA USA - Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 19:59:44 (PST)
|
I was about five years old
at the time (circa 1962) . Hot, muggy, summer's day. I was standing in my
grandmother's yard when I saw the first one -- very large, red glowing
orange to bright yellow. Like a sunset almost--it seemed to fall like a
drop and two more identical balls fell after it. There was a river nearby
and at the time I remember thinking they had to have fell into it.
Breathless, I ran to tell my father who explained it was ball lightning.
Deb Richter <richter a ody.ca>
London, On Canada
- Monday, April 01, 2002 at 15:15:21 (PST) |
I witnessed and photographed
what I believe was Ball Lightning on 1st Feb. 2002. See my web site for
more. http://www.ernmphotography com
Ern Mainka <ernm a ernmphotography com>
Kangaroo Ground, VIC Australia - Monday, April 01, 2002 at 09:20:25 (PST)
|
Re:Ball lightning; as a
small child in Atlanta, early 1960's, my brother and I were playing in the
den one afternoon. There was quite a loud explosion outside the window, I
dont remember it raining,when through the front of the tv, pops out a blue
ball about 10 inches in diamiter. It appeared to be spinning so fast it
had a gyroscopic effect, making it "float" around the room. Also there was
a fizzing or crackeling sound to orb. It couldnt have lasted more that 6
or 8 seconds, before it died. Seemed to me to collapse or implode. It
traveled aprox 10-12ft lightly "bounced" off the coffee table { it didnt
quite touch it though} and died.It came withing inches of both of us. He
looked at me, I looked at him, and we started hollering for Mom ! The most
astonishing thing I've ever seen in my 44 yrs.
Gregg Bellah <Gnarls a aol com>
Lookout Mt., Ga
USA - Friday, March 29, 2002 at 22:16:55 (PST) |
I have always enjoyed
watching a good electrical storm. In 1987 I was in MO on a fishing trip
and to visit friends. We were just outside of Sadalia when a strong
thunderstorm moved in. We had been on the creeks fishing at the time. We
moved all of our equipment to higher ground and hopped in the truck to
drive to the road. We were concerned about tornados. As I watched from the
truck, lightning was striking about every two seconds. Cloud to cloud as
well as ground strikes. After one bolt that struck the ground and held on
to discharge for more than 5 seconds aprox 4 balls of fire formed near the
path the lightning had took. The balls formed near cloud height and shot
from the sky to the ground. I did not see if they impacted or discharged
because of the distance between us. I do know this was however ball
lightning, and these balls formed high and streaked through the sky
heading for the earth.
Brad Shupe
Johnson City, tn USA - Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 12:23:49 (PST)
|
i was a boy in the 1st
grade, a brother and a sister 5 years older and my mother witnessed the
strangest thing in our yard. we lived in carrollton,a town outside
dallas,texas. carrollton in this time was a country town with a population
short of a couple thousand,and a police department of 3 policemen.it was
early evening about 7 pm, when our dog was outside barking with such
vigor. mom asked my brother to run outside and quite the dog.my brother
ran out and returned even faster, yelling mom, something is out there i
don't know what it is. mom looked outside thru the living room window and
whispered back to us,shut off all the lights inside the house. there was
this glowing sphere in the yard, the dog still barking excessively and
getting courious over this foreign thing.it seemed to pump from the size
of a grapefruit to a cantalope and back again,like looking over a hot road
in the summer and seeing the heat flow from it.it changed colors of
metallic blue,gold,pink,green.we watched this thing for fifteen minutes or
so, while the dog still barking as if a stranger was about.my sister
phoned the police and they laughed, mom went for the camera and it was
without film,the police said they would come anyway. the dog got closer
and closer to the object and finally took a whiff of it,the dogs nose
touched the strange sphere and it went directly up in a flash,into the
evening sky.the police arrive and see the grass left with char from where
the ball of light came and went,and suggested we only saw a meteor.the
hometown paper publishing a story of our experience, and wrote the story
as we spoke of as only for publicity,for the restarurant mom owned in
downtown carrollton.
dennis <dennissmedley a hotmail com>
dallas, tx USA - Sunday, March 24, 2002 at 21:18:40 (PST)
|
Incident 1
Dallas,
Texas - July 1992 9:30 PM
I was in the passenger seat of a Chevy
Blazer heading north on Cedar Springs. It was dark and raining, there was
a thunderstorm. On the west side of the street was a park, one block in
size. We stopped at the stop sign at Cedar Springs and Hedgerow. I heard
a loud cracking of thunder, and saw a 2-foot thick bolt of lightning
travel almost horizontally toward the truck from the east. It was very
peculiar in that I could see its tip as it propagated rather slowly
through the air. I thought it was going to hit the truck as it dipped
slightly toward us. Instead it passed over the truck, about 10 -15 feet
above the ground, then it arched slightly back up and hit a light post at
the edge of the basketball court in the park, about a 200 feet away. It
hit right on the hood of the light, about 25 feet high. All the
streetlights went out. There was a loud explosion and several ball shaped
sparks flew off immediately upon impact. There were about 4 or 5 of
these, each about 6-12 inches in diameter. They flew up and away from the
light hood in an arc and disappeared within a second. A huge bluish white
ball appeared at the same time as the sparks. We rolled down the window
to get a better look through the driver's side window. The ball was about
4 feet wide. It floated straight up in the air about 10 feet over a
period of about 10 seconds, then stopped still. Over the next 5 seconds,
the still ball began to fade as follows. Instead of one huge blue-white
ball, it looked like a sphere full of smaller balls of light, slightly
orange-white and slightly less bright. The number of balls decreased, and
as each disappeared, they made a crackling sound. The distribution of
smaller balls within the sphere remained about evenly spaced until they
were all gone. As they crackled, they left behind what looked like pale
white smoke even though it was pitch dark outside. This "smoke" filled
the sphere in a reticulated pattern, then it, too, faded and completely
disappeared.
One week later the second incident occurred, just two
blocks from the first incident.
Incident 2
Dallas, Texas -
July 1992 4:30 PM
A summer thunderstorm was brewing overhead, but
it had not yet begun to rain. I was in the house and heard a loud clap of
thunder at the same time as lightning flashed outside the window, so I
knew it hit very close to the house. I went out in the backyard to check
on the 70-foot tall pecan tree, which I thought probably got hit. The
tree was okay. But as I was standing in the yard, another lightning bolt
struck the transformer box in the corner of the yard with a loud crack.
Unlike the first incident, this was a very normal, fast bolt, and I did
not see it coming. The transformer was about 20 feet off the ground on a
wooden pole about 15 feet from where I was standing. I looked up at the
transformer box and saw 4 or 5 spark balls, each about 6-12 inches in
diameter just like the previous incident. They flew off the metal box in
an arc and disappeared. The electricity for my house came from this box
and down a droopy wire that connected to the corner of the single story
house. At the same instant that the sparks appeared, a tube of plasma
propagated along this wire all the way from the transformer box to the
house. It encased the length of the 70-foot wire. It was about 6 feet
wide for the entire length of the tube. It was incredibly beautiful and
colorful. It was shimmering and wavy like northern lights, and mostly
pink with a little purple. It was translucent, not opaque like the balls.
It lasted about 10 seconds. The air smelled funny, of ozone? When it
disappeared, I went inside. Not surprisingly, the lights were out.
Julie <julie_moseley a yahoo com>
Austin , TX USA - Saturday, March 23, 2002 at 17:28:46 (PST)
|
I'll be very brief: A few
years ago, in the late ninties, I was building a house on a bluff point on
the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. The house was being constructed
partially overhanging a large bluff and had a window walls about seventeen
foot tall on the both the rear (bluff side) and front, all one large room.
One very stormy morning as a helper and I entered the house to begin work,
we both saw a fuzzy yellow-ish orb about the size of a basketball come
from the bluff side windows and move towards us for about 15-20 feet. It
traveled on what appeared to be a level plane almost four feet from the
floor, and stopped perhaps two feet from me, remained stationary for a
maybe two seconds and exploded (seemingly) with a large pop that made my
ears ring and feel as if a large caliber firearm had been discharged near
my head. The floor, which had been dusty from construction, had a round
area about three foot in diameter that was cleaned by the concussion
immediately under the area where the ball disappeared. I'd never
experienced any thing like this before, nor since.
B.T. Turner <find a blomand.net>
Tracy City, TN
USA - Saturday, March 23, 2002 at 11:39:46 (PST) |
It was late July of 1995 and
I was in Pulawy, Poland teaching English for a UNESCO sponsored program
and was living in a school dormitory. It was approximately 11 o'clock at
night and the bedroom I shared with another teacher was dark and the floor
to ceiling windows that we had in the room were open with the curtains
pulled to the side. While my roommate was speaking, I was looking out the
window. The night was overcast but there was no rain. Our room was on
the 3rd floor and there was a tree line about 40 feet in front of us that
paralleled the wall of the dormitory. There was a popping noise, as if
fireworks had gone off; at the time, I didn't connect it with what I saw
next. A ball, about the size of a basketball, was moving slowly across my
point of view. It was rotating and giving off the colors of light blue,
light red and yellowish white. I was transfixed as it moved across the
window and beyond my field of view. I rushed over to the window and
before I could get out the sentence, "Did you see that?" to my roommate,
it was gone. At the time I didn't know what ball lightning was and my
friend thought the ball to be a UFO filled with aliens, though she hadn't
seen it. The next day, I spoke of it to our colleauges in the dining
hall. No one else had seen it, but several other people had heard the
pops. It wasn't until 1998 that I learned from a boyfriend that what I
was describing sounded like ball lightning. After reading about it, I am
convinced that ball lightning must have been what I had seen. Though my
roommate still maintains it was alien visitors - lol!
Lisa Caiafa <fivecube a aol com>
Brooklyn, NY
USA - Saturday, March 23, 2002 at 02:43:17 (PST) |
I was sitting on the back
porch last Wednesday when I saw something my daughter says sounds like
ball lightening. Our land is 4 acres cleared in the country with woods
surrounding us. It was pitch dark when all of a sudden I saw a ball of
white light which appeared to be about maybe 12to 15 feet above the ground
appear and move in a straight line to the right for quite a long distance,
and then return on the same path to the left. It was in the woods because
I could see the dark line of the trees in front of it as it moved. There
was absolutely no noise, only the sound of the bugs outside, and it moved
to smoothly to have been a light being held by someone running, also was
to high up for that to be the source.It disappeared as abruptly as it
appeared. I have no idea what this was, but it definately was something I
cannot explain, and I am a little frightened because of that. Could there
be any explanations other than ball lightening? I had never even heard of
ball lightening until my daughter offered it as a possible cause of this
strange occurrance.
Cindy <moneytree a vrdom>
Walterboro, SC
USA - Friday, March 22, 2002 at 14:54:02 (PST) |
My wife and I were spending
a week at the Word Of Life Conference and Resort grounds near Hudson,
Florida March 9th 2002, to March 16th. We were staying in a villa with
large bedroom windows overlooking a lake to the north of us.
I
retired early and was asleep when my wife awakened me urgently. I was
facing the window when I saw 15 to 20 glowing bright blue spheres
seemingly dancing within the window frames behind a venetian blinds and
pulled drapes. The glowing spheres seemed to appear and disappear at
random. There was a hissing or crackling sound similar to a giant bug
zapper or the sound of arc welding. The spheres were bright enough to
light up our darkened room with the intensity of mini lightning stikes.
There was no lightning clap sounds just the hissing zapping sounds. We
saw and heard other bright zaps from the other rooms on the same wall
through an open door. I estimate I saw about 40 to 50 of these spheres
and my wife likely saw more as she was awake when they first occurred and
it took a second or so to wake me. She said she saw about three waves of
the spheres. I noted tge spheres were all about the same size the size of
an orange. Some of the spheres seemed to be aligned in a straight line.
By the time I overcame the facination and surprise of seeing the
phenomena and got up to look outside they were gone. In the morning we
went outside to examine the windows, villa walls and ground but there was
no evidence of the electrical discharges having occurred. We asked other
residents of other villas within a few 1oo yards away but they heard or
saw nothing. Two of them were university professors who said they had
never heard of such an occurence.
The evening weather report
indicated an electrical storm was to pass slightly to the north of us that
evening. When I looked out the window after the occurence there seemed to
be electrical activity many miles north of us but nothing close enough to
hear thunder claps.
Ralph Alm <ralm07 a yahoo com>
Toronto, ON
Canada - Thursday, March 21, 2002 at 08:18:38 (PST) |
This event occurred about
1967 at State College, PA where I was a graduate student at Penn State
Univ. My wife and I were looking out the front window of our apartment
during a thunderstorm. We first saw "ball lightning" dancing along power
lines about 75 yds away. Three balls of neon green "light" appeared along
the lines, and they looked to be perhaps a meter across. A few seconds
later a ball of "fire" bounced down the rain gutter on our apartment less
than 2 meters from our window (to the left). It seemed to be about
basketball sized and also was greenish, if my memory serves me. None of
these phenomenom lasted more than a few seconds.
Michael T. Roberts
Shreveport, LA USA - Tuesday,
March 12, 2002 at 11:01:08 (PST) |
ball lightening- i was on my
computer(on the net) 2 nights ago in my bedroom when i heard a loud
crackling noise,like you get on a faulty appliance,it got louder and at
first it thought it was a fault on my pc.then i heard it again only louder
and turned my head to the left and saw a bright glowing sphere like the
best light show ive ever seen about head hight(when i stood up)and it was
about the size of a small football.it was not moving just hovering and it
seemed to emit lightening for about 2 ft from it(i was about 7 ft away) as
you can understand i was a little scared and didnt want to get an electric
shock of it.at this time the room was flashing neon(like lightening)then
after about 10 seconds the ball seemed to implode,the only way to describe
it is like the white dot when you turn the tv off.even after it had gone
the room still flashed like lightening for about 5 seconds there was no
lightening storm outside and the curtains to my room were shut which makes
it weirder,anyway thats why im on here no trying to find out more about
it
stevecooper <sticksy92 a hotmail com>
sheffield, england - Monday, March 11, 2002 at 15:28:20 (PST)
|
Back in late summer of 1997,
our town was expecting a tornado producing thunderstorm. My parents,
brother and I were sitting in our front porch, watching the skies for wall
clouds. If anyone has been around a tornado know about the ominus green
or orange colored sky that happens, well this was one of those nights.
There was cloud to cloud lightning, but nothing hitting the ground. Our
neighbor, about 30 feet away has a huge oak tree in his front yard called
"Ol reliable" because it is the tallest and oldest tree in our town.
Well, this tree has a chain-link fence that runs right by it, actually
touching the bark, the fence then runs back to the neighbor's garage.
This night we were watching the sky, and all of a sudden the area lit up
and the source of the light was coming from the chain link fence near
where it met the tree. The light looked like a bright lightbulb with a
blue-white glow. It went along near the top of the fence, but not
actually on the fence, it then went up the tree along the trunk, and about
half-way up, it disapeared. Shortly after, the tree was struck by
lightning, splitting the tree right down the center and burning a hole
right through the top bar of the fence, shorted out my neighbor's garage
door opener, and took out all the electricity in the block. The house
sounded like it was going to rumble off its foundation. I don't know if
this was ball lightning, or just the ground preparing to shoot the sky,
but the light moved so slow that it took around 10-12 seconds for it to go
along the fence and up the tree. Also it was the only lightning strike
reported in the area in a heavily populated town.
Leon Black <leodaso a yahoo com>
Robbinsdale,
MN USA - Wednesday, February 27, 2002 at 16:59:36 (PST) |
I have been able to produce ball lightning with my Tesla coils. I have
found that the parallel resonant primary circuit seems to work the best.
Also the amount of input/output power determines ball size. My first
balls were about 1-3mm with a 7500v
30ma xfmr. I got balls to 5mm with a 9000v 30ma xfmr, and up to 1cm at
15kv 60ma. I used a source of carbon, consisting of a small chunk of car
tire on a sharp pointed #6 wire. Before I start the coil, I set the car
tire on fire. The fireballs seem to
form in the flame and some in the soot cloud above. My photographs show
bright blue white balls, with some purples and pinks. I also was able to
capture a shot of an ember being ejected. It was nowhere near the
brightness of the observed fireballs in
the picture. Also what seems to work is carbon powder on the terminal.
My work on this seems to parallel a friends observation. Growing up in
West Virginia, he lived near a steel bridge. After electrical storms they
would sometimes see ball lightning
near the bridge. He told me that the bridge abutments were filled with
coal instead of stone, because it was cheaper in those days. Again
electricity and carbon. I have a book, I think the name is ALL ABOUT
LIGHTNING. It has one report of ball
lightning in a KC-135 tanker aircraft. They reported St. Elmos fire
around the cockpit windows before the event. As I am a former jet
aircraft mechanic, I can tell you that there is always a layer of soot on
and inside of those craft. Again electricity and
carbon. This could be the cause of the missile reports in the Flight 800
Disaster. If the static dischargers were broken, static would build up
quickly, possibily producing fireballs off the outer surface and interior.
I do have a static discharger for a
747, and if the plastic tip gets broken off it does not discharge well. I
am taking this to the NTSB as soon as I finish upgrading from my Apple II+
and get my own internet account.
David E Weiss
Oshkosh, WI USA - Friday, September 14, 2001 at 17:44:07 (PDT)
|
There was a perticularly nasty thunderstorm in the summer of 1998 and
my significant other at the time was on the telephone. I was standing next
to him when a blue ball of lightning the size of a softball came ou of the
electrical outlet the answering machine was plugged into. It was bouncing
off the corners of the wall like a pinball machine game, leaving a blue
tail behind it, then, just like that, it went back into the electrial
outlet. It left no burn marks or smell, but everything plugged into that
outlet no longer worked. It was frightening, but the most awesome thing
I've ever seen in my life!
charlene petrarca <moonchild1965 a webtv.net>
paw paw, mi USA - Sunday, February 24, 2002 at 04:37:44 (PST)
|
about 5 weeks ago a huge thunder storm approached my house. lightning
struck a tree near my porch, a ball the size of a dinner table it floating
straight through my front door burning a huge hole. it narrowly missed my
wife. the ball then proceeded up the stairs into a light socket, it
traveled through the rest of the wires in the house and came out in the
master bedroom through an electrical socket, maintaining its dinner table
size, the ball then made a somewhat popping noise and vanished before my
eyes
Carl Porter <cporter a iname com>
St. Joseph, MS USA - Thursday, February 21, 2002 at 14:11:28 (PST)
|
I was 4 years old when I went with my mom to visit my great
grandmother's house in 1983. She lived by herself, but that day my great
aunt was also at her house. Anyways, while my mom was inside visiting
with my family, I went outside and played in her little garden in front of
the house. There was a storm moving in, and my mom sat close to the
screen door to keep an eye on me and the weather. Suddenly, a loud clap
of thunder rumbled in the skies. The only thing I had on my mind was
getting to mom, so I turned and ran towards the screen door. I felt heat
on my back as my mom began constantly screaming for me to run. I remember
how scared my mom looked as she opened the door,jerked me in the house and
embraced me crying. At the time I thought I did something wrong, but it
wasn't until I was older that my mom told me that a fireball about the
size of a world globe had appeared in the garden after the thunder clap
and chased after me down the sidewalk, and disappeared after it hit the
screen door. But my mom was not the only one to witness this, my great
aunt and great grandmother also saw the ball of fire.
Jeremy <jman648927 a aol com>
Harvest, Al USA - Sunday, February 17, 2002 at 20:39:16 (PST)
|
BALL LIGHTENING I experienced ball lightening when I was holidaying in
Florence in 2nd/3rd September 1964. I was standing at a window on the
second floor of the Ufizzi Palace Art Gallery in Florence, Italy. There
was a severe electrical storm outside (sheet and forked lightening). I
had moved to the window as it was impossible to see the pictures. I was
standing looking out over a narrow back narrow street with buildings not
quite as high as the Ufizzi Palace. Suddenly a ball of lightening
developed in mid air about 200 metres up above the buildings opposite.
It was yellowish with a blue aura. It rolled at moderate speed in a
descending curve towards the wall of the Uffizzi Gallery. It left a short
trail like a path of yellow light. It appeared to be rolling along this
path. The ball was about twice the size of a football and rotating -
rolling over and over. It hit the side of the gallery wall with a solid
thud and then disappeared. It didn't quite break apart, it just dissolved
and wasn't there any more. It left a black sooty deposit on the wall. A
second smaller ball, the size of a tennis ball and more blue than orange
and seemingly independent of the first ball, rolled down a few seconds
later and hit the wall also and left a smaller sooty mark. At this point
I thought it prudent to withdraw from the window! The sooty deposits were
a striated effect with a puff of black in the middle and stripes of soot
radiating around it. Ball Lightening (2) In the early 1970's while
travelling to New Zealand in a DC8 aircraft over Thailand, the aircraft
travelled through a severe thunderstorm. The Captain came onto the
intercom and said we were experiencing St Elmo's fire. The plane was lit
with an odd white light and discharging off the wings (exterior of the
plane) was blue lightening. All of a sudden their was a bright white
flash and a ball of light about the size of a large tennis ball, danced
into the economy class cabin. It bobbed slowly down the aisle and brushed
passed my face and although I was expecting it to be hot it was not, it
was cold. It was about chest height and appeared as a ball more white than
orange. It hovered as it proceeded along the aisle of the economy class
cabin and then just disappeared. At the time those passengers around us
assumed it was some sort of discharge due to the storm. When we landed we
saw that the lightening had left holes (about 1 inch in diameter) in the
fuselage and wings.
Adrianne Hawkins <adrianne a tekiteroa.gen.nz>
Auckland, New Zealand - Sunday, February 17, 2002 at 19:11:55 (PST)
|
about 4.5 years ago i was working at the grand canyon. one evening i
was going out to watch the sunset when i saw, far away from me, this white
circle in the air, with a haze around it. coming down from this was a
zigzag, gold in color, touching the cliff. the ball did not move, and
lasted a few minutes, when it seemed to implode. the zigzag lasted for a
couple of hours, and even in the darkness i could see it. the zigzag
widened like a cloud from a jet does. other people witnessed this too,
though i don't know if it was ever reported. my boyfriend thought it was
ball lightning, but it doesn't sound like anything i have read about. i
have no idea what this was, so if anyone can offer any theories, i would
appreciate it.
Jenna <zade_0 a yahoo com>
USA - Sunday, February 17, 2002 at 07:22:32 (PST)
|
The idea of ball lightning has always fascinated me. The fascination
started when I was around the age of 8 or 9. The year was approximately
1969 or 1970. at that time I live in Connecticut in the town of Windsor
located 3 miles from an international airport called Bradley international
airport. my story. it was a summers day...hot, muggy, the air very still
and the weather man was calling for thunder storms and rain showers..on
these days my family would don there swimming trunks and wait for the
rains to cool us off..we didnt have a swimming pool and this practice of
waiting for the cooling rains was fun as a child. i remember standing out
side waiting for the rains..the sky was rather clear except for a few
scattered dark clouds and the air was still as if a bad storm was brewing.
on my left was a dense tree line that bordered most of the property..it
was from this direction that i saw the ball lightning.. i had heard a clap
of thunder and then out from a cloud to the left i saw a circular ball of
light. it flew from out of a cloud and drifted (not fast but rather in a
drifting manner) towards the ground..were it eventually went into the
wooded area in the back yard with a crash.. i had ran in after the
incident and gotten my father...who had heard the crash but not seem the
lightning.. we went into the woods and had discovered a tree that was
knocked down and still smoking (long needled pine tree) the tree was
always a point of interest to me as i grew older. this sighting has
always fascinated me. hope you find it interesting John M. 38 years old.
CT
John M. <jm6361 a aol com>
CT USA - Sunday, February 17, 2002 at 05:31:01 (PST)
|
May of 1997 I was on a return flight out of Denver, CO heading to St.
Louis, MO on a TWA 727 going through a thunderstorm. About 10 minutes
into the flight there was suddenly a glowing sphere of light in the middle
of our plane. It was very bright and about 12 inches across. It floated
motionless for a few seconds the exploded. The sound was loud and
frightening. The exit signs blew off the wall and everyone on the plane
was silent except for my sister and me (screaming we're going to die). I
asked if they were going to turn the plane around and the stewardess told
me that it wasn't a big deal and the flight would continue. I thought
that we were going to die thank God we didn't and I still fly to this day,
but I always get freaked out. Later, Jay
Jay Ralston <kingj27 a nycap.rr com>
Rexford, NY USA - Friday, February 15, 2002 at 13:14:16 (PST)
|
When I was about seven I was (stupidly) Playing with a piece of wire
and an electric socket. After a few times of almost blowing a fuse I
succeded but the darkness was accompanied by a bright white ball that
floated bounced and then disappeared.I know this is not a natural example
but it's the only time i've seen the phenomenon
Mark
Plano, Tx USA - Wednesday, February 13, 2002 at 13:57:14 (PST)
|
Ah, ball lightning is a delightful subject for me because my one and
only memory of it is also a father/daughter bonding memory. I was five
years old, and my dad was taking care of us kids while my mom was at her
bridge club meeting. Dad always loved thunderstorms (probably why I do,
too!) and he and I were sitting out on our old farm porch steps watching
one blow by. Well, I don't recall thinking anything at all odd was going
on when "balls" of lightning started falling from the sky into the
left-hand side of the front yard. They would always land on the left side
of the walkway, bounce once or twice, and roll rather quickly in a
straight line to the left until they would collide with the side of the
barn, explode, and disappear. They were about the size of a grapefruit,
bright white-yellow, and they made a loud crackly-hissy noise as they
rolled (my memory of this experience is rather noisy altogether, what with
the regular thunder, the rain pounding down, and the ball lightning
exploding.) I was too young to count very high, then, but I think there
must have been between eight and ten balls come down altogether, each
about a minute or two apart, although there was a time when they seemed to
be coming in very rapid succession. One thing I clearly remember about
this experience was that I was getting really angry at my dad because no
matter how much I begged him, he would not let me, nor would he, run out
into the yard and catch one of the balls for me before it crashed into the
barn! I finally relented when he explained to me that if he picked one
up, he'd "be all burnt up." FWIW: I don't remember feeling any heat from
the balls. I guess they must have been about ten feet away from where we
sat. Also, there was no damage to the barn or to the grass. (But I'm
still glad now that Dad didn't let me try to catch one... :) In
retrospect, I wonder now if the place where the balls were falling and
rolling had anything to do with the fact that that was where the well was
dug in the yard, and the pipes that ran from it to the pump in the barn
were pretty much exactly where the light balls were rolling. We never did
see ball lightning again at that house, and I have never seen it again so
far in my life - but one can always hope!
kim <kimbeall a earthlink.net>
PA USA - Tuesday, February 12, 2002 at 12:27:33 (PST)
|
In the summer of 2000 I was near a highway near bristol tn. It was
really bad storm so my father and I pulled off beneath and underpass as a
few others did to wait out the storm. There wasn't really a lot lightning
in the area. There was a fast food establishment about 2 or 300 feet off.
I happened to be watching towards it and noticed that a "ball" had
appeared there directly infront of the fast food place. It was no bigger
than a few feet in diameter. Its size based on comparison of things
directly near it. It looked bluish and whitish much like lightning. It
showed and stayed still for around 30 seconds or more. Someone in the
fast food establishment pushed open the metal and glass door to get a look
at it, upon doing so the ball floated towards the person or door as if it
were drawn to it. The person immediately went back in and the ball moved
back towards its original place. Shortly after it just faded out. My
fater also spoke of two particular account where "ball lightning" as he
put it, "floated through his house". He said he rememberd it coming
through a windown and when it came in was "violent" possibly threw some
metal objects around. He said both times it just made a route through the
house and back out.
Jason Absher <hairguy_1 a hotmail com>
kingsport, Tn USA - Monday, February 11, 2002 at 22:50:46 (PST)
|
When I was younger (about 8)my dad an I were outside watching the sky,
it was getting late so we were gonna head in,when this bright light I
thought was an airplane started moving across the sky. When all of a
sudden it started moving back and forth very erraticly, and startedt o
slow down and all of a sudden it dimmed and dissapeared, I found out
several years later that several of my friends had seen it also, and that
that stuff had actualy been spotted alot in my area. I thought it was just
some weird whether like ball lighting as we were in a stormy wether
system, but know I don't have any idea what it is as it was to bright to
be natural. I don't think it was a U.F.O, because that would be
ridiculous, but it was definately weird.
Anonymous <Anonymous>
Stirling, AB Canada - Sunday, February 10, 2002 at 15:56:32 (PST)
|
In 1993 I lived in Saskatoon Saskatchewan with my brother and we had a
ferrit. We had portable a dishwasher in the kitchen close to the sink and
counter. A freind was over and in the evening we were all standing in the
kitchen faceing each other chatting while I was making coffee. Suddenly I
saw a small yellow glow the size of a golf ball that apeared soft and
illuminescent shoot out from under the dishwasher approx 3" off the floor
and went in a smooth curve about 3-4' from the dishwasher and faded out
quickly with a sound like fssthst. The other part to this is our ferrit
ran out right behind the ball of light and seemed to be chaseing the fire
ball only to fiss out to no where. I reluctantly looked at my brother and
freind to ask if they had seen what I saw, just to see two more completey
puzzed faces. Each of the three of us compared what we experienced and
concluded the same. ???
Daryl Loewen <daryl a ozone.ca>
Surrey, BC Canada - Saturday, February 09, 2002 at 13:05:34 (PST)
|
May 5 1996 12:15 am one humid may night we had a very intense
thunderstorm,dad,mom,and i got up becaus of the storm,i went in the
kitchen to look at the lightning,and as i was looking i saw a big bright
blue ball about 3 feet in diameter,it lasted for 5 minutes,and then in
went in living room and later i heared a very loud bang,it sounded like it
was on both sides of the house,my toy ambulance went off,but it didt have
any batteries in it,and i could see sparks coming from the outlets,and it
may have made my clock change my witch read 1:20 am
micah josenhans
crisfeild, md USA - Thursday, February 07, 2002 at 08:26:02 (PST)
|
The Time Machine May 5, 1996 12:15 AM. One humid night, we had a bad
thunderstorm. I went into the kitchen to look out of the window at the
lightning and as I was looking, I saw a big bright blue ball about 3 feet
in diameter. Five minutes later I heard a very loud bang, it sounded like
it was on both sides of the house. My toy ambulance went off, but it
didn't have any batteries in it, and I could see sparks coming from the
outlets. It may have affected my clock also, as the time then read 1:20
AM. mj
micah <storm
mj13>
crisfield, md USA - Tuesday, February 05, 2002 at 15:31:36 (PST)
|
The Medieval St Mary's Church at Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire, UK,
suffered an incident that sounds like ball lightning, one Sunday in July
1779. The church guidebook (by Elisabeth Everitt & Roy Tricker, 1996)
records that "during divine service the lightning fell upon the spire...a
ball of fire descended into the body of the church and burst in the middle
aisle with a most violent explosion". Apparently the congregation took
this as a bad omen, and as a result wanted to demolish the church spire -
although a final decision to do so was not reached for 23 years!
Colin McLeod <Colin.McLeod a JNCC.gov.uk>
Dundee, UK - Tuesday, February 05, 2002 at 11:10:40 (PST)
|
My mother, Mrs P. McLeod, witnessed ball lightning in her garden in
Dundee, UK, on 26 June 2001, at about 11.00 am. This was during the early
stages of a thunderstorm (itself a relatively rare event in Dundee), but
before it had started to rain. Standing in the garden, she witnessed a
very bright white round ball, clearly visible in daylight, hovering in
mid-air about 1.5 metres above the garage. (This is a single-storey
flat-roofed building close to the house.) She estimates that the ball was
about 2-3 metres from her when first seen, and was "about 15 inches" (37.5
cm) in diameter. It remained almost motionless, but seemed to 'dance' or
vibrate very slightly. It was about 3-4 metres away after about 20-30
seconds, when she turned away from it, and as she did so there was an
extremely loud bang (or a nearby thunderclap?). This was violent enough to
cause the ground to tremble. My father was in the house at the time and
did not see it, but heard the noise. After the bang, the ball had gone -
the inference being that it disappeared explosively, although this was not
seen. The ball left no traces; there was no damage indoors or out, and
even the Residual Current Circuit Breaker that protects the power supply
to the garage and adjacent greenhouse was not triggered. A questionnaire
reporting the sighting was sent to the UK's Tornado and Storm Research
Organisation www.torro.org.uk.
Colin McLeod <Colin.McLeod a JNCC.gov.uk>
Dundee, UK - Tuesday, February 05, 2002 at 11:08:15 (PST)
|
It was 1962 and I was in Patrol Squadron Four in the U.S.Navy station
on temporary duty on Adak Island in Alaska. The story was told to me and
confirmed by fellow crewmen of the Tactical Commander of one of our planes
ASW stations. The crew of a P3 Orion were on a routine flight in the
Aleutians. Weather was turbulent with distant thunder. During the middle
of the flight, a few hours out, a large red glowing translucent object
came through the rear bulkhead of the plane near the galley and slowly
"rolled down the deck" passing the tactical command center. Crewmen sucked
back their feet less they get touched by it. Slowing it left through the
right fuselage forward of the electronic load center. It did not damage.
The Lt. Cmdr said it was the size of a basketball. It was in the plane
less than a minute.
Steven Salkow <salkow a bychoice com>
Pleasanton, ca USA - Friday, January 25, 2002 at 19:14:08 (PST)
|
it was a friday night so my parents let me stay up late. Good thing
too, because around 10:30 or so lightning just started striking, one after
another after another. I thought it was a real treat. But then A ball
looked like a huge...i dont know...larger than a basket ball, much larger,
but anyways, it came down through the clouds and almost seemed to float
before crashing into the ground and vanishing. There was no explosion,
and no lightning comimg from it. The incandesency was unreal, like
looking at the sun. I had heard about this ball lightning stuff and
thought that I was so lucky to have seen it. The next morning i went out
side to look where it had landed, but could find no trace of burns or
disruptions anywhere.
thomas <the_green_lotus a hotmail com>
Bel-Air, MD USA - Thursday, January 24, 2002 at 19:18:36 (PST)
|
I'm a professor and wouldn't want to spin yarns. But several years ago
I was driving from Chicago to Buffalo with my wife and daughter. We seemed
to be traveling east at the same speed as some wicked thunderstorms and
heard about tornados near us on the radio. At some point it was darker,
and more stormy than we could imagine and even the truckers were pulling
over. But we kept going. Suddenly I saw what looked like the single
headlight of what I guessed must be a motorcycle coming down my side of
the road but on the side so I wasn't concerned about hitting it. I saw it
for about five or six seconds (That's a realistic estimate). Just as the
car got to it, or it got to the car, it burst with a flash with a bunch of
sparks flying in all directions. It reminded me of the old pop-out
flashbulbs we used to use in cameras, particularly when they broke at the
time of flash. My wife was resting her eyes and didn't see it but my
daughter witnessed the phenomenon. I hadn't heard of ball lightning until
after that event. It looked like a headlight coming towards us.
Bill Hamlen <mgthamle a acsu.buffalo.edu>
E.Amherst , NY USA - Wednesday, January 23, 2002 at 22:06:58 (PST)
|
Hey everyone..I remember as a kid of about eight when a bad
thunderstorm was blowing over our town of Florence, SC. I was watching tv
and my Mother told me to turn the set off of course, I did so, and
returned to my chair to sulk...As a kid was want to do after having to
turn off the tv. A bit later a great streak of lightnng aaccompanied by a
tremendous clap of thunder. A moment later a ball of what appeared to be a
yellowish-red fire jumped from the speaker area of the tv ran across our
parquet floor for about six feet and then seemed to dissolve into the
floor. We later turned the tv back on..fearing it was damaged, but it
worked perfectly..You can imagine the effect that had on a kid and I still
remember it vividly today. I also always turned the tv off without
hesitation when my Mother asked in the future.
D.B. Price <bp a sc.rr com>
Florence, SC United States - Monday, January 21, 2002 at 21:02:22 (PST)
|
In about 1958, my mother, my brother and I witnessed a "ball lightning"
event. It was during a thunderstorm and it came through the outside wall
and "floated" a few inches above the kitchen floor. It was visible for
about 30 seconds, but it seemed much longer. It moved from one side of
the kitchen to the other. It made a crackling or hissing sound. It
seemed to follow my younger brother around the room as he was running from
it. It seemed to float higher and then went through a closet door and
disappeared. There was no sound and there was no damage to anything in
the house from it.
Jim <luckyjrc a aol com>
Orland Park, IL USA - Monday, January 21, 2002 at 05:33:15 (PST)
|
In the 1969 while serving in Viet-nam, our hooch was struck by
lightning durring the monsoon. A bright blue and orange ball of fire with
streams of static entered slowly through a wall next to my bunk, nearly
striking me. The hair stud up on my body as I fell backwards in an attempt
to miss being hit by this object. The ball changed directions and speed
several times and it looked as though it was rolling in mid air as it
slowly struck several objects in the room. It`s size deminished with each
empact and it arcked and sparked as it slowly mooved around the room. It
dissapered with a explosion and sparks when it struck the door of one of
the metal lockers in the room. I have seen this phenomana two other times
in my life and these were produced using a high energy Testla
coil.
Jon D. Smith <jondeansmith a netscape.net>
St. Joseph, MO United States - Saturday, January 19, 2002 at 10:33:57
(PST)
|
My aunt says that some of the workers from where she works saw ball
lightning. During stormy weather they say that the light ball slid trough
the window and went into the room where they worked , went near the
computers and disappeared. After that all these computers were not
working.
Volodymyr <Volodimyr86 a yahoo com>
Ukraine - Saturday, January 19, 2002 at 09:22:33 (PST)
|
i was in 6th grade, im in 12th now and oddly enough doing research on
ball lightning has made me want to share my experience. If memory serves
me correctly I was watching tv and a small storm was brewing outside. All
the sudden i see a ball of light on the power line, then the power line
exploded. It looked whitish to me. Not sure if it was ball lightning but
let me know what yoyu think.
nathan defrees <gecko424 a home com>
nashville, Tn USA - Tuesday, January 15, 2002 at 08:11:49 (PST)
|
While driving across the Canadian prairies, my partner and I could see
a supercell storm building aprox. 200 km ahead of us.We drove straight
into it 3 hours later and the fury of the hailstones and rain forced us to
pull along side the road. We debated the merits of staying put or moving
as the lightning strikes seemed to be occuring with shorter intervals
between them as well as hitting close by (within a kilometer or two!) Our
minds were made up when a blinding flash struck right beside us taking out
two wooden power poles and leaving a third in flames. Just as we pulled
back onto the highwayand aproximately five seconds after the strike, two
bright balls of light, each with a blue corona around them , floated
across the road at a height of maybe two to three metres above the
pavement. They appeared to revolve around each other on a verticle axis as
they drifted in front of us ( in line with the third pole). This occurred
in the late afternoon, but the density of the cloud above made it appear
almost night like. One ball disappeared in the air while the other seemed
to land in the open field on our right hand side and gradually dimmed like
an ember. The pole immediately to our left was completely shattered to
within a metre of the ground, the second pole about four metres up. Truly
a humbling and incredible experience!
Dean Agar <lynda_agar a home com>
courtenay, bc canada - Monday, January 14, 2002 at 22:38:37 (PST)
|
I have now experienced ball lightning twice. The first was when I was
about 9 years old. I was standing in my bedroom doorway as a ball of
green-white light (about 3 feet in diameter) streaked from one end of the
house to the other. My father was standing near the end of the hall
where the ball originated and saw it as well. I don't think there was a
storm at the time. The second was two days ago. I was at a friend's
house, sitting on the couch watching a movie when we both saw a brilliant
ball of blue-white light burst in front of an inside wall, above the
fireplace. This was accompanied by a pop and a "fizzt" sound. At the
same time, we could see through a glass door in another room that all of
outside was lit in that same blue-white light. A couple seconds later (I
had enough time to start asking "what was that?") a huge boom of thunder
shook the house. That was the only storm activity all night.
Stefanie <stefwarren a juno com>
Seattle, WA USA - Monday, January 14, 2002 at 13:56:21 (PST)
|
In the late 1970's I was driving along the A12 main road in Suffolk,
England near the village of Yoxford in a torrential downpour (daylight).
Ahead in the distance (difficult to say how far away) I saw something
small and whitish, but not glowing, in the sky moving right to left. It
then flashed green and continued moving as a very bright greenish glowing
spot. It all happened very quickly. My first thoughts were that it could
have been a swan or seagull being blown into power lines, but the green
spot continued moving across the sky. I never saw any reports of anything
unusual in the press. I wonder if I saw ball lightning.
Richard Williams <richard a miller-williams.freeserve.co,uk>
UK - Sunday, January 13, 2002 at 15:44:51 (PST)
|
I have always wondered what I witnessed and always assumed it was my
imagination or tried to convince myself that it was nothing, but for the
past 8 years it has always made me wonder what exactly was it, I am now
convinced it was BALL LIGHTNING. It was a slightly damp evening and I had
popped out on to the balcony, as I sat down to look at the sky, wondering
what the weather would bring, not one but two very slow moving bright blue
spheres passed straight across the balcony, continued to the end of the
house and just vanished, they were either absorbed by the wall or they
continued around to the front of the house. I sat in disbeleif and tried
to think if I had actually just witnesed what I had seen. These spheres
were within a couple of meters from me and I know what I saw, they were
perfectly round and of a similar make up to the plasma type electrical
spheres you see, they had a bright blue outer and a hint of orange and
bright red towards the center, they both traveled very close to each other
and followed exactly the same path, aside one another. I discussed this
soon after with my wife, as I could not beleive what I had seen, to this
day I would love to see it again and would love to have an answer.
Alan.Williams <wmsa12 a aol com>
Telford, Shropshire, UK - Sunday, January 06, 2002 at 11:30:49 (PST)
|
It was in 1997, in a trailer in moundsville wv. I was sitting with my
wife on a warm, late summer day. As we talked our cat came over and lay
down on my lap. All of a sudden there was a bright white and yellow ball
of light come floating from the hall way into the liveing room. we both
saw it, but couldn't believe it, but we know it was there because the cat
jumpes up and started hissing at it. The light floated acrossed the living
room till it reached the center of the room, and then it just faded out.
All this took about, 15 sec. sure would like to see that again.
rob <captaintrips1217 a aol com>
moundsville, wv USA - Friday, January 04, 2002 at 11:17:55 (PST)
|
I saw a golfball sized brightly glowing scarlet red ball hover just
above ankle height around me for about 5 seconds...appearing and
disappearing without effect. It was on a street at night and i hadnt been
drinking which was also an unusual combination, however it had been
raining shortly before and the night was damp and calm in Autumn, no
thunderstorm had recently taken place as i was aware of certainly i hadnt
seen any nearby lightning strike. I thought of it as an inquisitive fairy
which is about as good an explanation as any...
Morph. <Lordmorpheus_uk a yahoo com>
Blackburn, England - Saturday, December 29, 2001 at 04:12:56 (PST)
|
In the summer of 1968, Long Beach, California, the area experienced a
severe series of electrical rain storms. Early one Saturday morning, I
was sitting at an open bedroom window, watching the storm (as I enjoy
storms). I heard a muffled "crack" sound, turned my head toward the
bedroom door to see if anything else would happen from there. When
nothing more came, I turned my attention back to the scene outside my
bedroom window, only to see a socker ball sized ball of yellow-white light
soundlessly bounce and spin down the road a few yards from where I sat
before it disappeared from my view due to other buildings. I was just
thinking I should tell my parents what I'd seen when my father opened the
bedroom door, looking strange, and asked me what I was doing. When I told
him I was watching the storm he had me close the window and move away from
it. I discovered later in the morning that this same "ball of light" had
come in through one of the windows in my parent's room and cracked it in
doing so (this was the "crack" sound I'd heard). After coming through the
window, the ball of light had hit the floor "spinning", travelling out of
their bedroom door, down the hall, across the kitchen floor and out the
kitchen utility room door, down the stairs and onto the road, where I had
seen it zip by. It had missed my parent's bed by about 8 inches, and my
father was fairly upset about it. Something about the event affected his
beard, as he was unable to shave for about a week. Nothing more
metaphysical than that...we were just glad to discover we'd not been made
orphans by this odd ball lightning.
Pauline E. <PaulineEaster a netscape com>
MD USA - Thursday, December 27, 2001 at 11:50:49 (PST)
|
At home in Butler PA there were quite a few reports from people who
Lived in underground homes, Always took the TV out with the satalite dish
equipment (old C-band stuff) It would float down the hall and dissappear.
Maybe the Under ground has something to do with it??
PJJ
Butler, PA USA - Wednesday, December 26, 2001 at 19:38:14 (PST)
|
While at school in Manchester, in 1983, I was in a class in a
prefabricated/mobile out-building. During a thunderstorm, a bright ball of
light entered through a raised trailer caravan-type air vent in the middle
of the room, came down very quickly causing my chair to kind of leap
sideways a couple of feet out of the way, it then turned towards a side
window and left through the open top section. There was a deafening
explosion/thundercrack, but I didn't see whether it was the ball that
caused it or not. The whole incident took no more than two seconds, I
recall filling out a statement with other classmates for researchers in
the weeks following the event.
Ray Godwin <godi a barrysworld com>
Manchester, Great Britain - Friday, December 21, 2001 at 02:49:53 (PST)
|
Summer 1999, I was sat in the lounge of a house in Unsworth, Manchester
during a thunderstorm. I noticed a bright ball of light, smaller than a
soccer ball move slowly down from just above the roof of a house to the
rear of the property. It headed directly towards the window, following the
countours of the garden in the manner of a cruise missile, but very
slowly. I feared it was going to come straight through the window, but
when it reached the glass, it rose upward, and out of sight. I then heard
a huge explosion. House and car alarms were set of, presumably as a result
of the shock wave. A neighbour told me later that her alarm system
required electrical repairs after the event.
Ray Godwin <godi a barrysworld com>
Manchester, Great Britain - Friday, December 21, 2001 at 02:40:57 (PST)
|
I saw what I now believe to be ball lightning back in 1987, I was 8 at
the time. I was looking out of the front windows of the house, watching
the rain. I then saw this bright orange ball travel at an angle of around
50 degrees towards the ground. It looked like a meteorite, it had a sort
of corona and what appeared to be a small tail. I couldn't tell how close
it was, so I cannot guess at it's size though I would say that it was
about four inches in diameter. I told my parents and went out to
investigate as I thought it was a meteorite. I found no trace of anything
at all. As my house was overlooked a school car park, there were no
street lights or any other form of lighting outside.
Ian <sheepshat a hotmail com>
Newcastle, UK - Friday, December 21, 2001 at 01:43:57 (PST)
|
I'm not sure what year it was but I think it was 1962 when hurricane
"FREDA" hit Vancouver,British Columbia. My Dad & I were looking out the
back window when suddenly we heard a loud continuous rumble so loud that I
could feel the vibration on my chest! We were transfixed to that window
for what seemed a life time! Everythung went into slow motion. Right at
that moment the power went out in our house. As we gazed on downwards
towards Burnaby Lake about 2 miles away, we could see very clearly a huge
ball of lightning roll through the clouds over Burnaby Lake like a bowling
ball. It really did have a sound similar to that of a bowling ball rolling
down the lane towards the pins! Suddening, as the lightning grew brighter,
we saw a huge water spout sucking up water from the lake just downhill
from the back of our house. It was a few moments in time that are
unforgetable. To have a camera ready for that picture would have been a
miracle! What a life experience!
Neil MacDonald <neil9000 a hotmail com>
Vancouver, B.C. Canada - Wednesday, December 19, 2001 at 06:05:03 (PST)
|
Ok, several months ago, I had the fortunate encounter of what I now
learn to be ball lightning by looking it up on the net. But the reason
this story differs from the rest I just read, is that I caught it on film.
I never thought much about it until now, and realize there are a lot of
interested people. I had my sony handycam on and rolling, videotaping the
hail coming down on my car, when the ball of light, white with some hints
of orange in it fell down through the ceiling. It is roughly 1' at it's
widest point, and looks almost like a rugby ball, oval. It's hard to
explain, but the tape does all the explanation for me. From the
descriptions I just read, there is no mistaking that this was, in fact,
ball lighting. Is this common? to catch these on film, or do I have
something special here? Could this tape be valuable? My e-mail is
oscardelarentos a hotmail com Thanks, Oscar
Oscar Delarentos <oscardelarentos a hotmail com>
Kansas City, Mo USA - Saturday, December 15, 2001 at 02:42:15 (PST)
|
One day me and my brother were sitting in our metal house with 6
lightning rods on a hill during a thunderstorm. Not very smart is it?
During the thunder storm the electricity became so powerful the telephones
began to ring themselves and the electricity erased disks on our computer.
This is normal during a thunderstorm exept this time our telephone
exploded and a red ball of lightning came out of the telephone. It flew in
our livingroom in a zig-zag path, then it dissabeeared with the sound like
a firecracker.
Taylor Brock <Have no e-mail>
Glensboro, KY USA - Wednesday, December 12, 2001 at 07:15:40 (PST)
|
While sitting in my lounge room, on a stormy night, I think it was
81-82 in Melbourne Australia. I observed the folloing. A ball of light
came through the wall or window, it was the size of a tennis ball and
glowing it floated across the room into the kitchen I fllowed just to see
it leave through a slightly opened window, it turned the corner as if it
new the window was opened, I ran outside to see where it was going but
lost it, as I came back inside, the room smelt lightly, as if a fuse hat
blown or maybe sulpher. Anyway that's all folks.
Toni Putrino <Toni a Putrino.de>
Haan, Germany - Wednesday, December 12, 2001 at 06:09:08 (PST)
|
Wow, I'm glad I found this site! About 8 years ago (I was 14 at the
time), me, my sister and about three of our freinds were inside a lecture
center, in a mosque. We were all alone and the lights were dimmed because
we didnt want to be disturbed, or told to leave. Well, we were talking
about paranormal things and a few of us were saying how we didnt belive in
paranormal activity. Then one of my freinds said "Satan???? Bullshit!"
....right then and there a great, yellowish-white ball of lightning zoomed
past us (about 50 feet away). It went from one end of the lecture hall to
the other with great speed. It had a few streaks of yellow lines
following it. We RAN out of there as fast as we could! And it was real
because all five of us saw it. No one spoke of it since then, and I've
only told one other person about it.
Nikki
Chicago, IL USA - Tuesday, November 27, 2001 at 23:32:38 (PST)
|
One day I was sitting in my living room in a thunderstorm. Our roof is
made of pure iron so the house could have been a conductor or something.
anyway a ball of lightning came right out of the telephone and zapped
across the living room, then it dissapeared with a bang. Is it Saint
Elmo's fire?
Musan
Parid, KY USA - Tuesday, December 11, 2001 at 07:15:11 (PST)
|
Summer 2001. Camping on top of mountain, a storm stayed all night.
While walking between 2 campers sights, a blue ball of light went thru air
in front of me. while trying to figure what it was another one fell. they
were about the size of grapefruit.
George
tn USA - Monday, December 10, 2001 at 20:23:24 (PST)
|
I saw a lightening ball when I was about 13 (16 years ago) but I didn't
realize what it was until later. I was in Tennesse on a road trip with my
family and we were stopping at a restaurant during a ferocious
thunderstorm. We were running for cover when I heard a sound so strange I
turned to see what it was even though I was getting soaked. It was a low
pitched but loud buzzing/humming noise. I saw, on the roof of a nearby
building, what appeared to be a huge round neon sign. It was blue, turned
pink, turned blue again, then seemed to vanish. I was not a very
communicative person so when I realized no one else had seen it I didn't
say anything to them, wondering if I had imagined the whole thing. I
think now the lightning got backed up somehow before going down the
buildings lightning rod, but I don't know.
Jenny Star <ravenstar25 a hotmail com>
Taunton, MA USA - Friday, December 07, 2001 at 14:40:14 (PST)
|
I had been working as a long-lines lineman for AT&T for about a year in
1959. We were re-transposing a long distance line about 12 miles from
Vaughn New Mexico. There were thunderstorms in the distance and we were
looking anxiously toward them to determine wheather to suspend our work to
avoid high voltage charges on the line from the distant storm. I looked
toward the storm and was surprised to see a whitish gold ball about 2 feet
around rolling along the copper wire estimated at a quarter mile away.
This ball was rolling towards us at an estimated speed of 15-20 mph. As it
got closer it exploded at one of the poles. we could hear no sound. This
was the first and last ball lightening phenomena I have seen.
K D Raught <bluewing11 a attbi com>
Ogden, ut USA - Wednesday, December 05, 2001 at 21:43:08 (PST)
|
I?ve just seen a programme on TV about ball lightening and although I
knew my experience of it was a rare phenomena, I had no idea the
scientific community was so sceptical and in need of "reliable" accounts.
With an acedemic history that focused on science, particularly physics and
chemistry and as someone quick to dismiss supernatural phenomena as
nonsense I am surely as good and as convincing a witness as anyone.
Luckily my husband was also present during the occurence and his
recollection of the extraordinary event is the same as mine. I was sitting
by a wood-burning stove in the corner of our living-room. The walls of our
200 year old farmhouse are almost 1m thick, there were no windows within
5m and we were on the ground floor. The weather was stormy but not
unusually so. Very suddenly a ball of neon blue light appeared in the room
about 2m from me, it wobbled around for a couple of seconds then exploded
with a bang. It was suspended about 1.5m from the floor and a corona
fizzed like a sparkler around it. It was about 25cm in diameter and about
as bright as a 100W bulb. I said to my husband "Do you realise that we
have just seen one of the worlds rarest phenomena? You?ll never see that
again!" Incredibly, within 30 seconds we witnessed a second ball in the
same place which was smaller, faster and exploded less violently.
lizzy grey <lizzygrey a hotmail com>
spain - Thursday, November 29, 2001 at 14:27:24 (PST)
|
In 1977 I was living in Kuwait in the district of Abrak Khaitan. My
family lived at the top of a block of apartments looking across an open
space towards some low houses with flat roofs. These houses had no
electricity. One evening a violent storm approached from the direction of
the airport which was behind the houses by about half a mile. It was
pouring with rain and a green flash of light struck the roofs leaving
three green balls of light which appeared to be floating around on the
water which had gathered there. Another flash of light struck the ground
between our apartment and the houses and the same phenomenen occurred at
ground level. The balls of green light appeared to be floating around on
a large puddle. I was pretty scared as the thunder was louder than I had
ever heard before and was accompanied by a crackling sound. This event
was viewed also by my young daughter who was later taught in school that
ball lightening does not exist!!!:-)
Jennifer Oldroyd <john.oldroyd a ntlworld com>
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire England - Tuesday, November 27, 2001 at
12:33:47 (PST)
|
I can remember when I was nine years old during the Summer of 1973, my
family and I were at a friends house for a backyard barbeque/pool party in
Kenosha, Wisconsin one Saturday afternoon just after a thunderstorm. The
sun came out again, and my friend Craig and i were standing in the front
yard looking up at the telephone poles along the street, and there was
this "volley-ball" sized dim white/bright grayish spherical orb completely
surrounding one of the telephone wires, as if the telephone wire was
passing directly through the central horizontal axis of the "energy
sphere", and the sphere was moving back and forth across the wire very
quickly, then stopping still, and resuming movement again as if it were
playing "pickle" between the two adjacent telephone poles! It only lasted
about nine or ten seconds then faded away into non-existence. I remember
hearing a slight electrical "buzzing" sound similar to those crazy
Tesla-type contraptions you'd see in the laboratory of Dr.
Frankenstein,(an electrical discharge buzz) then the sound stopped, and it
was silent for a few seconds before it disappeared. It was brighter in
appearance when we first observed it, then it grew a little dimmer within
the nine seconds of it's existence. It was weird as hell, man. I remember
saying to Craig: "What's that!?!" And Craig yelled for his dad! I look
back now, and realize it was St. Elmo's Fire or "ball lightning"
phenomena. Anyway, just the same....it's a fond memory in my mind. I
haven't seen anything like it since then (Nov. 2001) to this day.
Joe <heyjoe34 a yahoo com>
USA - Wednesday, November 21, 2001 at 20:23:35 (PST)
|
On wedensday, November 14th, 2001, A Ball Lightning went through my
room. I was in my room doing my homework, and my sisters were downstairs,
when we heard the loudest BOOM we had ever heard before. It went through
my room, hit my arm, and then hit the wall, where it left a mark! I ran
downstairs and my littlest sister (3) was under the kitchen table, shaking
and crying. The ball of lightning was about the size of an orange. It was
really freaky!
Kelly <pinkwings a funshack com>
Canton, Mi USA - Wednesday, November 21, 2001 at 18:21:34 (PST)
|
Well, this had to have been the oddest thing that has ever happened in
my life. it happened about five years ago. My and my father were riding
home from a bowling game. There had just been a sever thunderstorm and it
was still raining outside. once in a while there would be a flash of
lightning. we were approaching a sub-station when it was hit with a
cloud-to-grong lightning bolt. The flash was exceedingly bright and the
explosion of sparks was HUGE! there was no fire, but is seemed that there
were floating balls of pure white about as high as a telephon post. We
pulled over to the side of the road along with a few other witnesses.
There were about 2 or 3, and all except 1 moved away from the station.
they then just plainly disappeared. all this was in about 20-25 sec. the
fire department said that it created power outages for a whole neighbor
hood.
Joshua Boehm
New Berlin, WI USA - Friday, November 02, 2001 at 11:31:05 (PST)
|
On tuesday Oct28 2001 at about 4:30pm travelling east on rte 88 Point
Pleasant NJ with my two boys 7 & 9 as we reached the top of the rte 88
bridge my truck became engulfed in a bright orange glow, in my rear view
mirror I observed for a fraction of a second a ball that seemed to have a
blue core with an outer intense orange luminosity. I thought my gas tank
had caught fire and pulled over to get ready to exit the vehicle. There
was no indication of any damage whatsoever. I told this story to my
girlfriend who told me of a story when she was living in England of an
incident of ball lightning. I had never heard of this phenomena before. I
don't know how to explain what happened but my two sons and myself all saw
this. Also there was no storm activity. <
/b>
James Mitchell <jmitch11 a home.net>
Point Pleasant, NJ USA - Monday, October 29, 2001 at 05:03:09 (PST)
|
One evening, a few months ago, I was finishing up the day at a chemical
plant were I work in process development. My project at the time was a
relatively large distillation pilot plant that I was constructing outside
behind our building. This somewhat isolated location often lead to my
presence being unnoticed by co-workers. This, along with my unawareness of
time wile working obsessively, meant I was often the last employee to
leave the building.
This particular evening was no different. I walked through the building
turning off any forgotten lights or equipment as I made my way to the main
entrance. I made sure the front offices were vacant and headed toward the
alarm control panel, turning out the hall lights along the way. As I
passed by a door leading to one of the back bays I noticed a figure
approaching from the other side.This was not my unexplained event, it was
our maintenance man (who I have known for approximately fifteen years). He
seemed to be quite excited, and he began to accuse me of f---ing with his
mind. This puzzled me, especially since I thought their wasn't anyone in
the building (he apparently slipped in with a companion while I was
checking the offices). After I explained that I was preparing to lock-up
and go home he said that he had just witnessed something very strange. He
then stated that just before he came up to me he saw a luminous green
sphere drift across the center bay of the building, traveling from the
north it appeared to pass threw a fire door from the adjacent bay and
disappeared just before reaching the south wall of the center bay. His
accomplice, which I recognized as his wife's "mother"(former legal
guardian), also saw the same thing.
I was skeptical at first, but knowing that we were both well educated
professionals, I just couldn't picture him making this up. After several
weeks had passed, the fact that he had not mentioned this experience to
any of the other employees led me to believe that he did see something.
What did he see? I don't know, the only possible explanation I have come
up with is plasma produced by a coronal discharge from a large three-phase
transformer near the door from witch "the ball" emerged (this event may
have occurred at the same time I turned off the last light switch wile
preparing to leave). From what I understand the set of circumstances
required for this to occur make it highly unlikely if not impossible.
If anyone else has a possible theory, or had a similar experience,
please contact me.
Michael Shaw <micallsha a yahoo com>
Tucson, AZ USA - Saturday, October 27, 2001 at 06:39:29 (PDT)
|
IN the winter of 2000\2001 around the time of 10:00pm Me and a few of
my friends were riding on snowmobile and we saw a strange green orb
streaking over a hill. We chased it for several miles until it slowly fell
and dissapered into the snow. for more
information call the following:
These are the people who were there 1.CHAD(me)- (1-709-623-2531)
2.Jerry - (1-709-623-2268)
3.Bret - (1-709-623-2275)
Chad Anderson <Chadson12 a hotmail com>
Griquet, NFLD Canada - Sunday, October 21, 2001 at 14:52:39 (PDT)
|
br>
When I was approximately 5 years old (this would have been about 1935)
I was living in the Walbrook section of Baltimore City. During an
especially violent electrical storm I was sitting in our living room on
the couch with my mother when there was a l
oud lightning strike just outside. The living room had an old-time light
fixture hanging from the center of the ceiling; a small fixture suspended
by several links of chain. Almost simultaenously with the lightning
strike, there occurred a loud series of
pops and an orange ball of fire about the size of my head jumped off the
light fixture, hovered in the room for a while and then disappeared in the
area of the corner of the room. There was no apparent damage.
Paul R. Falconer <PaulRFalconer a aol com>
Midlothian, VA USA - Tuesday, October 16, 2001 at 09:07:18 (PDT)
|
It was finally friday. The day i always looked forward to as a kid. Get
off from school and play with my friends. One night me and 2 of my other
friends decided to have a sleep over at my house. We often liked to "camp"
out in my back yard and play foot ball in the wee hours of the morning.
This of cource, would be a very different sleep over.
We had the tent all set up, when it start to rain very heavly. We where
forced under my padio, so we decited to sit and wait for this rain to
subside as we played cards. 30 mins or so passed and i was about to lay
down my 'Full House' when i saw somthing
out of the corner of my eye, that i have not seen any one else report. It
was multi colored ball lighting, in the shape of a foot ball. I saw it
very high in the sky, maybe 4 or 5 stories up. It was maybe 3 or 4 blocks
away and traveled down behind some
houses. There was no bright flash, no bang, no sound at all. Me and ALL my
friends saw this, it took about 5 to 8 seconds from the time i saw it for
it to dissapre behind the houses.
Seeing this, me and my friends where very scared and dumb founded by what
we saw. We decided to sleep in side. The rain was still pour down, and the
lighting and thunder began. As we watched from behind a couch looking out
my glass sliding doors to my
back yard, we saw 'normal' ball ligthing, as i now know it, streeking
across the sky, we saw about 8 or 10 ball in total that night. This storm
was a freek storm that hit the Modesto area. We also had Hail earlier that
same day.
This all happend when i was 10 or 12 years old, and ever since i have been
very facinated by weather, every time there is a storm im always watching.
I always get emotional talking about this being that its so unbelavable to
me.
if any one has any info on "multi colored" ball lighing please contact me
at evilk a ozline net I am very interested.
Thank you
Ross
Ross Monge <evilk a ozline.net>
Modesto, FL USA - Tuesday, October 09, 2001 at 02:19:37 (PDT)
|
IT WAS JUST LAST EVENING AROUND 1 A.M. WHEN I WAS SITTING ON MY COUCH
WATCHING T.V. WITH ONE OF MY CATS SITTING BESIDE ME WHEN WE HEARD A FAINT
SCRATCHING SOUND BY OUR FRONT DOOR. AS I LOOKED TOWARDS THE DOOR, I SAW A
SMALL BUBBLE BLUE IN COLOR COME TH
ROUGH THE DOOR FLOAT IN THE AIR FOR ABOUT 5 OR 6 SECONDS AND THEN LOUDLY
POPPED WITH A FLASH. THIS STARTLED US BOTH AND I RAN AND TOLD Y HUSBAND
WHO IMMEDIATLEY CHECKED OUT THE AREA. NO BURNS ON THE DOOR WHERE IT HAD
APPEARED FROM. IT WAS RAINING ON AND O
FF THAT EVENING BUT NO THUNDER STORMS. I HAVE READ REPORTS AND SEEN TV
PROGRAMS WHERE SOMETIMES BALL LIGHTENING WILL APPEAR BEFORE A CATASTROPHE
SUCH AS TORNADOES AND EARTHQUAKES BUT TODAY IT MAKES ME WONDER. WE JUST
BOMBED AFGANISTAN AND....THIS AFTERNOO
N MY HOUSE SHOOK FOR A FEW SECONDS WITHOUT REASON. I THOUGHT MAYBE IT WAS
A TREMOR. I'LL HAVE TO CHECK THE NEWS TO FIND OUT BUT NOW EVERYTHING SEEMS
TO ADD UP A LITTLE.
CHRIS <HRDLUKWOMAN a AOL coM>
GREENVILLE, NC USA - Sunday, October 07, 2001 at 13:52:20 (PDT)
|
I used to live in suffolk in england and one day, after a day of sun
and hot weather it began to cloud up and you could feel a thunder storm
was on the way. I was looking out of an upstairs window from my house over
a large field and noticed a glowing
ball about 50 metres away, probably around the size of a football,
white/blue in colour, drifting across the field. It was probably about 2
feet above the ground and moving at around walking pace. It did this for
about ten seconds then disappeared with a
flash.
My brother who was outside with a friend of his also saw the same
incident.
matt craven <matthewcraven_ a hotmail com>
london, england - Friday, October 05, 2001 at 11:54:44 (PDT)
|
Ball Lightning
This happened back in 1976 and witnessed by myself and four other friends.
I was stationed at a Military Airbase in the Mojave desert at the time.My
friends and I used to meet at my house and carpool to work .One summer day
during an infrequent desert thunderstorm which usually lasted less than an hour,we were startled by an
extremely loud thunderclap caused by a lightning strike out in the desert
near my house.It seemed like almost immediatly afterwards that my friends
an I saw a "light neon blue" ball of energy a little bit bigger than a basketball come through my open
screened-in patio and sliding glass door and ground itself out on my
stereo system.The stereo shut off momentarily but came back on within a
few seconds without getting damaged.I've never
seen anything like it since then,but the sighting is still a topic
amongst us friends on the rare occasions that we see each other.
G.Davis <SHORTYD044 a hotmail com>
Dallas, Tx USA - Tuesday, October 02, 2001 at 04:56:15 (PDT)
|
My family was sitting at dinner one night in Georgia. Lightning struck
a pine tree just outside of the sliding glass doors that led from the
dining room to the back yard. We heard the loud crack of the tree
splitting and then a huge (basketball size)
fireball passed like a ghost through the glass doors, rolled across our
table onto the floor and then dissapated.
My cousin also had an experience with a fireball on an airplane. It was
storming and there was a lot of turbulence, so the flight attendants were
strapped into seats just like the passengers. One stewardess took the
seat next to my cousin. They saw lig
htning flash outside of the plane and then they all saw a fireball roll
right down the middle of the aisle of the plane. It dissipated part of
the way down. My cousin was pretty shook up, but the stewardess looked at
him and said, "I really hate it when
this happens!"
Jean
USA - Wednesday, September 26, 2001 at 03:12:05 (PDT)
|
In the early 1980s the S.F. bay area experienced an unusual number of
thunderstorms (thunderstorms aren't common there), and during one of these
('82 or '83) I saw what I believe was ball lightning - I KNOW it was some
sort of lightening as there's not
hing else it could have been! It was very similar to Jesse's experience
(see post 4/19/01). It was about a softball size, bright white light that
came through the glass balcony doors, sped across the room and disappeared
into the wall. There was no sound,
smell or damage. I'm pretty sure it was round in shape, but it appeared
elongated as it moved so quickly. The whole thing lasted just a few
seconds at most. I've told a number of people about this over the years,
but many don't seem to believe it, and
I've yet to meet anyone who's seen anything similar (that I know of,
anyway). It's very interesting reading the various posts on this site, and
seeing how many people have experienced this type phenomenon.
KAU <kauinca a netscape.net>
CA USA - Tuesday, September 25, 2001 at 12:06:57 (PDT)
|
Wow! This is the first time I realized there was a name for this thing!
We live in Wisconsin and in about 1991 my three sons and I moved into the
upper part of our house as we had made an apartment out of the lower
floor. Since my youngest son who was
about 8 was afraid to sleep in his "new" bedroom, he asked if he could put
his sleeping bag on the floor in my room. As we were settling in I
realized we had left the small light on in the bathroom which was
connected to the bedroom. My son got up to shut
it off, which he did, and as he just was crossing the threshold of the
door coming back into the bedroom this ball of light came in through the
north window. It moved around the room, as if bouncing off the walls, and
then as weird as it sounds, "slipped
" under the main bedroom door which was closed. I would describe it as in
a cartoon where something too big slips through a tiny hole or crack. My
other 2 boys were on the other side of that door with the light on, doing
homework, but never saw a thing. I
t was about 10 to 12 inches in diameter, and was pure white and a
perfectly round glowing ball. There wasn't any thunderstorms as I have
just read in other accounts. There was no damage done to the window.
Earlier that same day, in the morning while I was
getting ready to get up I had seen the same thing. I was half asleep and
thought I had dreamed it. If my one son had not seen it with me later that
evening I would have thought my eyes were pulling tricks on me. It's nice
to see other people have seen
it too.
Billie
USA - Friday, September 21, 2001 at 20:05:32 (PDT)
|
I was in the car with my grandma and grandpa driving to my cousins
house. It was about 12:00 mid day. it happend very quickly. a small white
ball bounced out of nowhere and on to the roof of the car in front of us.
when it hit the roof it broke up into
smaller purple balls that just disappeared after about 2 seconds.
Jesse Frost
Aidelaide, sa Australia - Friday, September 21, 2001 at 20:00:18 (PDT)
|
Ball Lightning:
In the early '70's I worked as a two-way radio technician in central Iowa.
One overcast, misty summer morning I was called to repair a police radio
"base station" at the Boone County courthouse. The radio system had been
hit by lightning earlier that
morning. I repaired the radio and was leaving the building by way of the
front courthouse steps when I heard a "sizzling" sound from overhead. I
turned and looked up at the vertical radio antenna on the roof of the
courthouse to see a blue, basketball-
sized ball of plasma slowly descending the 20-foot long fiberglass covered
vertical antenna! The plasma ball was symmetrically "skewered" by the
antenna and was appoximately 15 ft. from the top of the 20 ft. antenna and
descending at a very slow rate.
I quickly ran inside the building and asked the radio operator if she had
used the radio since I had left (only seconds before); she had not. I
again checked the radio and it functioned normally. The plasma ball was
gone when I again left the building
the second time.
The weather at the time was overcast and a light mist was falling. There
was no lightning in the area and no wind.
I was an electrical engineering student at the time and knew that the
phenomenon was not understood. The radio system operated at about 60 MHz
and could transmit 100 watts of power. I thought that the high voltage
present at the tip of the antenna might
have caused the plasma to form, but the operator did not use the radio.
It is possible that I caused it to form while transmitting during the
repair process, but that effort ended many minutes before I initially left
the building. The antenna was a
commercial co-linear vertical antenna that has the unique feature of being
grounded along its entire length (inside its fiberglass jacket).
The radio was an FM communications radio and it was silent (squelched)
when I rushed in after seeing the plasma on the antenna. That is, there
was apparently no FM component in the plasma radio spectrum (nature is AM
only!)
In the middle of Iowa I believe that I saw what mariners of old called
"St. Elmo's fire!"
Rick Shindley <ricks a techcomsvcs com>
Big Lake, MN USA - Thursday, September 20, 2001 at 21:28:23 (PDT)
|
Hi on August 8,2001 i was in my office on the telephone, when all of
the sudden there was a huge bang on lightning. i tried to put down the
portable phone, but was to late. as i looked over at the bass station i
saw a 6-7 inch ball of whitish yellow
light flly through the air right at me. the phone was blowen about 15ft
form my hand and i was knocked unconcious.
i suffered a severe head cuncussion and neuro damage.
i swear the ball came through the telephone line, the phone still works
and 3 other computers where blowen out in the same building.
is this possible for ball lightning to travel through the phone, not
breaking anything or was i the conductor that got hit
please help i am very confussed, people say it is not possible yet i saw
it and have medical bills to prove my injuries
joey a laplaza.org
joey blue <joey a laplaza.org>
ranchos de taos, nm USA - Wednesday, September 19, 2001 at 15:56:40 (PDT)
|
BALL LIGHTNING
When i was ten we had a pretty bad thunderstorm. we have a pagola oustide
i remember going outside and seing a whiteish blue ball the size of an
apple go through the pagola roof. after about 5 seconds it disappeared. i
told my parents but they didn't believe me. therre is still a black ring
of where it enterd
Steve Pegga <groovy_dude88 a hotmail com>
Melbourne, Vic Australia - Tuesday, September 11, 2001 at 02:31:54 (PDT)
|
In approximately the mid-1970's, in the month of April, I along with
several friends was driving along the top of a river levee in the
Mississippi Delta area, which is a flat area. We could look for a long
distance because of the flat terrain and the f
act that we were in an elevated position on top of the levee. It was
slightly after dusk and we were returning from hunting. A thunder storm
was in progress, during which numerous lighning strikes were occurring.
After one lightning strike we noticed an i
mmense round-shaped glow occur at the spot near the ground where the
lightning had struck. The strike occurred several miles away and we could
see it clearly since we were elevated above natural ground level and it
was dark. Most of the accounts of ball l
ightning I have read about describe the ball as small- no larger than a
volleyball or so, but this one was very large. It was 3 to 5 miles away
and it appeared to be as large as several houses. Color was nearly the
same as lightning color- basically orang
e and yellow.
I had never seen it before and was puzzled by it, but one person in our
party had heard of it and said it was a "fireball" associated with
lightning.
wsw <wwine a yahoo com>
MS USA - Sunday, September 09, 2001 at 13:50:18 (PDT)
|
Summer of 1992 in Dallas, Texas. We were driving home during a
terrible thunderstorm at night. We stopped at a stop sign next to a park.
A bolt of lightning hit a street light in the park, about 100 feet from
us. There was a loud explosion and spar
ks, all the street lights went out. Then a lightning ball floated off the
street light right where it had been struck on the bulb cover. It was 3-4
feet across, very bright bluish white, and silent. It floated slowly
straight up for about 10 seconds, t
hen fizzled making a sound like a sparkler and leaving a reticulated ball
of smoke. Very beautiful and surreal.
Julie Moseley <TnjMoseley a aol com>
Austin, TX USA - Saturday, September 08, 2001 at 19:41:08 (PDT)
|
This event happened to me in mid-April, 2001, while driving to work,
the location was Hampstead, New Hampshire; a small town in southern New
Hampshire. The time was 5:45 a.m. and this was a perfect New England day:
sunny,clear,and mild (about 70 degree
s). I don't remember it raining or storming the night before. I'm driving
up a long, but not very steep hill, and I see this "fireball" about 100
feet in the front of me over to the left, it appeared from the back side
of the white congregational church.
I kept driving up the hill and watched this thing. I couldn't take my eyes
off it.
The "fireball" crossed directly in front of my car and I
watched it go into a wooded area. The ball was round in
shape, with a tail about one foot long. The size was that
between a grapefruit and a large orange. The color was mostly white (like
a sparkler you have on the 4th of July),
the outer portion and some of the tail was red-orange. It
did not hurt my eyes to stare at this. I did not hear any
noise from it; I had my car radio on an AM station and there
wasn't any static. I also didn't smell anything, but I was
also inside the car. The most surprizing element was that this fireball
was moving very slow, it almost bothered me
I had to slow down becasue it was taking its own sweet time
crossing the road. It seemed as though I could have reached out at just
grabbed it. It was simple and beautiful. And, the other surprise was that
it was about 4 to 5 feet from the ground and remained at that latitude
from the moment I saw it - to it goin
g into the woods. My total sighting time was a good 30 to 45 seconds and
never did the brilliance, shape, color, travel course, or distance from
the ground change.
About a month later I mentioned this event to my boss, who is an engineer,
and he said this was called ball lightning.
I also work with people from the Federal Aviation Administration and they
told me the same thing - and not only is a sighting rare, but the length
of the viewing was
extreme.
I now wish I watched longer and got out of the car. I feel lucky and felt
an obligation to describe my experience.
And they say nothing happens in New Hampshire ....
Karen Osborn <karenosborn a att.net>
Derry, NH USA - Saturday, September 08, 2001 at 18:17:53 (PDT)
|
In the summer of 1965, I lived at 122 Franklin Street in Concord, N.H.
USA. It was around 9:00PM when a very strong thunderstrom struck. I heard
several very loud lightning strikes around our home. Our house was
surrounded by large oak trees. I got out
of bed and walked into the hall. I was not sleepy and had not yet fallen
asleep. I heard the loudest lightning strike I have ever heard, it almost
sounded like kitchen knives being struck togther with incredible force.
All of a sudden I saw a ball of wha
t appeared to be fire rotating approximately six inches off the floor in
our hallway. It appeared to be a quickly roatating ball that could not get
traction. It slowly started to speed up and with every foot it traveled it
almost doubled in speed. Finally
it went through the doorway leading into the bathroom, appeared to go
over the radiator in front of the window and went out the open window. It
traveled in a perfectly straight line and remained approximately 6"-12"
above the surface of the ground. I che
cked the floor and rugs and there was no sign of burning. To this day I
remember it as if it just happened. I can assure you that this is not a
joke or simply a person with an overactive imagination.
Matthew H. Upton <flyfishmatt a aol com>
Concord, NH USA - Friday, September 07, 2001 at 15:48:42 (PDT)
|
I saw ball lightning in Sept, 1980, just west of Green River, WY, while
traveling on Interstate 80 going West. It was about 5AM and still dark.
I looked out of the car windshield at a particularly active cloud
formation (lots of lightning zotting out
of it), and saw a spherical ball, that had to be lightning, jump from one
cloud to the next. My guess is that both cloud bases were at about 10,000
ft, maybe lower, the distance between the two distinct cumulous nimbus
clouds was maybe a mile or two. I
t was not raining. The ball must have been huge, and it was roughly a
yellowish/orange color (it looked like a miniature Sun). The display was
over in a second. Interestingly, from my viewpoint, the ball traveled in
an arc from the first cloud to the n
eighboring cloud. There was no trailing lightning flash, no noise that I
could hear (was inside a car traveling at about 60 mph), and no lightning
jumping from one cloud to the next, until this happened. It didn't
explode or do anything dramatic after i
t hit the cloud, just disappeared. What a sight! Charles O'Toole
Charles O'Toole <chasmary a worldnet.att.net>
Grayslake, IL USA - Friday, September 07, 2001 at 15:27:09 (PDT)
|
My familiy's cottage in Ontario Canada, was the last cottage on the
electrical line. During the many intense summer thunderstorms my sisters
and I would sit by the electical outlets and watch what I remember as blue
bolts off light comming out of the
outlets with each big lightning strike. There were two hanging lamps in
the living room one had had some sort of electrical short a few weeks
before and was damaged (not by lightning). After a big lightning strike an
orange ball (sunlike) about the size of
a basketball came out of the damaged lamp, moved across the room at a
walking speed and disappeared into the other hanging lamp. This happened
in the mid 70's and I was about 9 years old. Unfortunately the electrical
line has now been extended and forms
a loop. The blue zots no longer happen.
Ernie Kovacs <ekovacs a redshift com>
Pacific Grove, CA USA - Tuesday, September 04, 2001 at 15:02:25 (PDT)
|
In Dallas, Texas in the spring of 1943 we had severe thunder storms
with spectacular lighting strikes near my home. My sister and I used to
seek refuge from the noise in our Mothers bed after our father had gone to
work. During one of the most severe
storms I have witnessed we had a ball lighting occurance come though a
window and hover above the floor. It was about the size of a grapefruit
and glowed bright white in our darkend bed room. It pulsed and tended to
change colors and made a slight
sizzling noise. My mother and sister also saw it. It lasted no more than
5 to 10 seconds and disapeared in a flash making a loud bang. On numerous
occasions during the summer of 1944 we witnessed ball lightening at a
local drivein movie then known as the
Whiterock. The balls would move up and down along the edge of the screen.
I have spent many years since then and have never seen it again.
Harry Tasker <Ww5OIQ a hOME coM>
gARLAND, TX USA - Sunday, September 02, 2001 at 21:01:53 (PDT)
|
8/27/01, approx 7:30p.m.: In Temagami, Ontario, Canada I was
vacationing with my family. A thunderstorm was rolling in and the
lightning was getting too close for comfort. I was watching the sky to the
North, which I thought was a strange direction
for a storm to come from, when all of the sudden I saw a flash of orange
lightning and a 3-4 foot wide fireball move quickly across the top of
trees just across the water from my campsite. I was scared beyond belief.
I had never even heard of this before
and now I am glad to know I wasn't dreaming for an instant.
Dona
USA - Sunday, September 02, 2001 at 11:48:08 (PDT)
|
Yes, it is a memory that sticks for life. I witnessed Ball Lightning
when I was ten years old in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I recently wrote my
memoirs in prose and limericks and the following is my little chapter on
Lightning Balls.
Lightening Balls? Who Ever Heard Of That?
Yeah, this is a story
about lightning balls. Who ever heard of lightning balls? I never did
an' after I saw that one when I was 9 or 10 that almost swallered us up I
never seen one again. Anyway we always had lots of summer rains and
thunder'n'lightning that really got bad. We never had no tornados an'
some people they say it was because there was three rivers that wound
round through Fort Wayne and that protected us. I don't know if that's so
or what. Those three rivers was the St. Marys River and the St. Joseph
River and they got together and they formed the Maumee River. I don't
know why they never called that river that the other two rivers formed,
Joseph & Mary, the Baby Jesus River but they didn't do it that way. They
called it the Maumee. Anyway, I'm getting' off track again... So, during
this big thunder'n'lightning storm the lights blew out in the house and we
heard this awful loud low-pitched moaning hum an' people yellin' outside
so we went out to look. There was this big ball of lightning-fire rolling
very slowly along the power lines comin' toward the pole with the
transformers in front of our house an' behind the ball all those wires
cracklin' with fire and smokin' black. Now if you want scared then you
couldn't ask for anything much better to do it for ya. That thing was
awesome and it was like about fifty feet in front of our noses. I've seen
a lot of these new-fangled movies with the digital sound and all that
stuff. but there's nothing like the real thing to do it bad. If there was
time travel I'd like to go back to that day and see that ball do its thing
again. It was absolutely amazing.
A lightnin' ball rollin' along on the wire...
You s'pose if it hit us we'd all catch on fire?
A big ball of flame,
I swear by His name,
Gonna engulf us...then we watched it expire.
But it didn't just expire. It got as far as the transformer, blew that to
smithereens, and then it went up in smoke. And that was the end of that.
Nothin' but smoke driftin' off in the wind. An' the rain comin' down in
sheets. I don't remember how long we had to use candles before the light
people came an' fixed all the burnt out wires an' stuff. I don't know how
it kept goin. An' where it got its power from. Do you suppose it was
suckin' juice right out of those power lines? Now that I'm grown up I
have heard of other people that have seen the same thing but I don't know
if they saw them only on power lines too. I can't imagine them just
rollin' along the barn roof or rollin' along the ground. Maybe I can find
them on the internet...everything else is there. Anyway, that lightning
ball was like a total solar eclipse or something else that's rare...if you
see one once in your life it's like a miracle. I saw a total solar
eclipse a few years back but I'll never get around to telling you about
it. It happened here in Costa Rica an' that's not part of the story so it
won't get told here.
* * * * *
Dick Burgoon <theangelsnest a racsa.co.cr>
USA - Friday, August 31, 2001 at 15:20:09 (PDT)
|
My grandfather was struck by
ball lightning 20 years ago. He was downstairs sitting in a chair
watching tv. The tv was about 8 feet away from him. He said that a
glowing white ball floated out of the tv and zipped towards him. It went
through his right hand and left his left hand. It then went to a wire
outlet near a wall and exploded (there was a loud band and it
dissappeared). He said his hands felt tingly for days afterward. This
took place in Sudbury, Ontario, CANADA. My neighbour was looking after
our house two days ago and had witnessed a trendous storm. She was
standing in the kitchen and looked out the window. She saw a huge glowing
white ball of lighning hovering in our field. Next thing she knew, there
was a loud bang and all the windows rattled so hard that she thought they
were going to break. The field is not too far from the house, it's about
30 or 40 feet from the front steps. Apparently, our heat pump has pipes
that run out to the field. We think that that the ball of lighting chose
that spot due to the pipes. When we checked our heating system, all the
alarms were on and showing indications that there was a massive power
disrupition. This took place in Warkworth, Ontario, CANADA.
J.N. Gibson <senseijenn a aol com>
Warkworth, ON CANADA - Wednesday, August 29, 2001 at 10:59:26 (PDT)
|
I have always been a weather watcher, and was finally fortunate to
observe ball lightning in June, 1991, very near where I now live. There
had been a severe thunderstorm watch, and the weather service had been
most emphatic as to the atmospheric instability in Central Virginia that
day. Fortunately, my work required that I go into the field that
afternoon, as the storms formed, and I took numerous pictures of
developing t'storms. Just at the end of my trip, I was returning to the
office and found myself driving in an intense downpour. The rain suddenly
let up, and as I slowly began to accelerate my car, a CG lightning strike
lit up my windshield not more than 20 feet in front of my car. There was
an instantanious "click", followed by thunder that was so loud as to be
felt. Startled, I hit the brakes, and observed four globes of BL, as
bright as the lightning bolt itself had been. They formed approximately
100 feet in the air, and drifted downward. All were about the size of a
basketball. Knowing what I was seeing, I quickly pulled off the road, and
observed three disappear quickly. The fourth reached the ground, rolled a
few feet and exploded with a loud detonation. (My camera? In the back
seat. I usually keep it beside me ready to take necessary photos.)
Incidentally, about a half mile later, I pulled off the road again to
observe and photograph what I later learned to be an unusual (for
Virginia) wall cloud that spun out an F1 tornado 5 miles away that did
some minor property damage to several homes
around the Country Club of Virginia.
A very memorable weather day.
C. Fielding <fielding_cs a hotmail com>
Midlothian, VA USA - Tuesday, August 28, 2001 at 10:36:51 (PDT)
|
A friend's grandmother was visiting from out of state when I met her
and noticed severe scarring on the right side of her face (as if from
fire). Later, I asked my friend how she received her burns and he told me
this story:
In the late-50's, his grand-mother, grand-father, dad and an uncle were
getting ready for dinner. Everyone was seated around the table and the
grand-mother got up to close the kitchen window, as it was getting ready
to storm.
A moment later, everyone in the dining room heard her scream and ran into
the kitchen where they saw an orangeish-white light, about the size of a
soccer ball floating in the middle of the room. It went out through the
doorway into the dining room, passed into a bedroom through a wall then
out a different wall and back into the kitchen. As it went back into the
kitchen, it "brushed past" his grand-mother's face and burnt her before
entering the kitchen faucet and disappearing.
I asked his dad about the story and he told virtually the same story, but
from a different point of view. (Apparently, he watched it go from the
bedroom into the kitchen wall and didn't see the burn happen or
dissappearance of the ball occur.)
The burn on her face was the only evidence of the ball ever occurring. No
marks were left on the walls and nothing was damaged.
Don Schram <dschram a bigfoot com>
Waterford, MI USA - Sunday, August 26, 2001 at 19:25:56 (PDT)
|
This event happened sometime in the summer of 1972. I was living near
Ames, Iowa at the time. Some friends and I were visiting a farm where some
other friends live. The time was evening, after sunset. We were outside
enjoying the view of a particularly powerful thunderstorm that was about
10 to 15 miles distant. It was unusual because the night sky above us was
perfectly clear, no clouds, just sky and stars. The thunderstorm looked
like a great wall that extended from horizon to horizon, from the ground
to maybe 20-25,000 feet. The lightning, as usual, was spectacular. Then,
about 15 to 20 degrees above the horizon, directly in front of us, a point
of light appeared, not suddenly but gradually from nothing to full
brightnes. Then, the point of light moved horizontally, in a straight line
to our left about the distance of the width of two fingers held at arm's
length. The point of light stopped and then faded and went out, just as it
had appeared. the whole event lasted about 5 or 6 seconds. We looked at
eachother with our mouths open in suprise. One of us said, "I think we
just saw ball lightning!"
Paul S. Szymanski <sampunski a hotmail com>
Eugene, OR USA - Saturday, August 25, 2001 at 15:11:28 (PDT)
|
When I was living in an apartment it was 4th of July just after a rain
storm, it was still cloudy. We started shooting off fireworks with my mom
and a few friends(I was 8 or 9). We had a firework that shot off balls
upward but it seems one decided to turn around then shoot at me(thats what
my mom say's, she doesn't believe in ball lighning. I remember though
that one of these balls came from the clouds from the corner of my eye. It
shot down through the fireworks and shot close to the ground and then shot
towards me upwards then straight. It hit me square in the mid section
chest to my abs. I was knocked a few feet back into a tree. I looked
down at my skin and saw that nothing had been scorched or scarred. If I
had been hit by fireworks I know I would have been burned through since it
tends to burn till all of the phospherous had gone, which means it should
have lasted a few more seconds and burned though me and the tree. Oh and
there was absolutly no sound and no smell.
Easton Hawkins <Optima630 a aol com>
Raleigh, NC USA - Friday, August 24, 2001 at 17:30:41 (PDT)
|
i recently discussed this with a friend and he told me of a time when
he served in the navy aboard a nuclear submarine and witnessed a machine
created ball lightning that actually chased a shipmate of his down the
length of a corridor! sounds wild!
josh strebler <keizerzose a aol com>
charlotte, nc USA - Tuesday, August 21, 2001 at 19:35:21 (PDT)
|
I saw a lightning BALL in my
family room. I was about ten years old and the light pole down the street
was struck by lightning one night during a storm. It was very loud
(obviosly) and everyoen in the room was startled. I saw a round
blue/white "object" fly across the room from one wall to the other. At
first i thought that something had been shot of of the wall, but there was
nothing there afterwards. I dismissed untill one day when i was watching
a show about lightning balls, and then i knew what it was that i
saw......
Devin Taylor <SmileyMax a aol com>
Pocatello, ID USA - Tuesday, August 21, 2001 at 16:34:54 (PDT)
|
In the early 70's and in the county of Hereford in England, my sister
and I were playing in the front garden and had made a tent out of an old
wall and Mum's teatowels.
We were quite young (5 & 6) but still remember very vividly that late
afternoon the air just changed and an almighty thunderstorm came over
really quick.
We were very scared and huddled behind the teatowels but then all of a
sudden a bright light brought us out and in front of us there was ball of
flame the size of a beach ball. It seemd to hover in front of us forever
but prabably not even seconds. I was going to touch it as I thought I saw
the face of Jesus in the ball. Lucky my elder sister grabbed my arm and
stopped me otherwise I probably wouldn't be here today!. The ball then
just shot off and disappeared up into the sky.
Yvonne Watts <n100watts a aol com>
Essex, England - Saturday, August 18, 2001 at 11:02:50 (PDT)
|
Ball Lightning Siting: 03 August, 2001 at approximately 7:20PM in
Chelsea, Massachusetts, USA. it was pouring rain accompanied by thunder
and lightning. I was doing my exercises in the front room. I heard an
unusually loud clap of thunder, causing me to look up and out the window.
I saw a brilliantly bright ball of light about eyeball level with me. It
was about the size of a basketball. I was in the bottom floor of my
house, and I stand 5'8", so I would venture to say the lightning ball was
12-13 feet above the ground. I am so glad I looked when I did; though I
admit it was a little scary.
Elana <metaldancer a earthlink.net>
Chelsea, MA USA - Saturday, August 04, 2001 at 16:58:04 (PDT)
|
I constructed a telephone switching system at a summer camp with about
4 miles of outside wire (mostly above ground) running to a well grounded
control panel in my cabin. During a typical severe Pocono Mountain
lightning storm, a soccer ball sized soft blue and purple light making a
quiet electrically hissing sound formed over the panel. Some of the
relays, switches and indicator light bulbs burned out simultaneously with
a pop. The ball which formed about four feet above the floor, raised to
about six feet and moved at three feet per second along the top of the
wall approximately one foot below the ceiling. Moving approximately
twelve feet, it suddenly extinguished with an 80 decibel pop, leaving a
gray mark about four inches in diameter on the ceiling.
Tom Gibson <tgibson a teachers.org>
Greeley, PA USA - Saturday, August 04, 2001 at 08:43:14 (PDT)
|
It would be of interest to categorize these reports (lightning storms,
out-of-the-blue, domestic, etc). My incident of two years ago is similar
to lightning strike stories here.
I was driving on an elevated interstate in Denver under a greenish storm
cloud that immediately after the incident dumped torrential rain. There
was a flash of light and all the building and traffic lights for some
distance went out. Half a mile away I
saw a small, bright yellow sphere on top of a power pole. It seemed to
roll along the power line, then dropped slowly off, turned greenish, and
faded before it touched the ground, all in the space of about ten seconds.
I thought at the time part of it might
have been burning insulation.
Nobody else seems to have reported it - which I thought strange but
neither have I before! Perhaps most people think that if they are
personally seeing something it must be mundane. Perhaps the rain
suppressed the religious experiences. And how do I,we
remember such a phenomenon without reforming it as a theory, which shades
the memory? By its being a singularity in fact and perception, that dreams
cannot touch. Interesting that yr ball lightning reports are stunning and
mostly devoid of added meaning.<
/b>
Terry Gulliver <
tgulliver a appliedhydrology com>
Baytown, TX USA - Sunday, April 15, 2001 at 08:09:39 (PDT)
|
it was late at night and i was looking out my bedroom window. i saw a
light .it looked like the sun only lighter colored and lightning was
coming from it. i told my parents, but they wouldnt come and look. god how
i wished i had a camera.
Cassie <
sweetchic01 a goosehead com>
berea, ky USA - Tuesday, July 17, 2001 at 09:50:20 (PDT)
|
I recently had an encounter with a strange phenomena that I am still
trying to place. It was the day after the fourth of July and we had been
having amazing lightning storms every night for about a week. I was at a
freinds house in the country and we
were watching a lightning storm. My freind pointed at something and said
"look at that cool firework!". I looked at the same thing and at first I
thought it was a firework. The thing that bugged me was that it was
floating, holding perfect altitude ab
out 20-30 feet off the ground. A firework would need a guidance system of
some kind to pull that off. Infact the only movement at all was a tiny
drift to the south. It stayed in the air for about 45 seconds which
seemed awful long for a firecracker to
hold its shape. It dissipated without any noise or explosion. The thing
that was wierd about it though was that it had a small billow of what
looked like smoke drifting away from it. There were also what looked like
sparks falling to the ground during
its entire lifetime. That might have just been illuminated rain, but I
didnt think it was raining in that particular spot.
Josiah
Ft. Collins, CO USA - Saturday, July 14, 2001 at 12:46:28 (PDT)
|
8/1/01 early this morning i
was woke up by heavy thunder and lightning and my dad, he was getting
ready for work. he stepped out into the living room and was in disbelief.
in front of him was a large 2-3 foot in diameter spinning ball of
lightning. it spun then, exploded with a amazing bang and created a
smaller piece that went into our kitchen. when it reached the kitchen it
went directly for the cieling fan/light fixture. it appeared to go into
it, blew up the lightbulbs and was gone. this however is not the first
incedent of this type of phenomenon happening in my house. when i was
small during a lightning storm my grandparents, 3 kids, and my parents
were watching tv. then a ball of light the size of a softball came
throught the picture window. it did not break the window, but then
proceeded into the living room lightswich. since then we have not been
able to get the lightswitch and dimmer switch to work.
sarah <
sarahbelle_126 a yahoo com>
wi USA - Wednesday, August 01, 2001 at 14:28:02 (PDT)
|
When I was 6 yrs old, I was
in the back yard of a house my father was painting in north central
Wyoming. A whitish ball with a blue glow zipped across three houses
following the rain gutters.It jumped from one house to another in a
straight line before disappearing at the end of a house. It was about the
size of a grapefruit. I asked my father what it was; as he was staring at
me with a grin. He said it was ball lightning. I didn't realize it was
such a rare occurance, until I decided to look it up and found this
website. It was an astonishing sight which I remember perfectly till this
day.
G. Lucas
Billings, Mt USA - Saturday, July 28, 2001 at 17:47:58 (PDT)
|
My mom lives in Annapolis
MD. Two weeks ago (July 2001)she was sitting on her living room couch
reading during a rainy day (not a thunderstorm). Suddenly there was a
terrific crack of lightning right at the house and a ball of lightning
about the size of a quarter appeared in the living room. It's edges were
quite distinct. It hovered motionless near the TV set for a few seconds,
then disappeared with a "click". No damage to any objects or signs of
entry point.
Allen Peterson <
peterson a clarityconnect com>
Owego, NY USA - Friday, July 27, 2001 at 20:06:37 (PDT)
|
I am writing on behalf of a
few friends of mine who have seen an unexplained phenomena several nights
on their way home. They have both seen a "ball of fire" floating above an
old barn in the sky, but it disappears as soon as they get close to it.
They have only seen it a few times, and other people that have gone
looking for it have not yet been able to see it. They said it ususally
happens around midnight. They would like to know if anyone else has had a
similar experience, or if anyone could give an explanation for what this
thing might possibly be. I thought at first it was St. Elmo's fire, or
ball lightning, but neither description for those phenomena exactly
matches the description they've reported to me. It sounds like a
combination of both actually. I have not yet seen it for myself, but
would like to, although they both swear on their lives that they've both
seen it, separately and together.
Shaunna <
flyangel254 a hotmail com>
Wooster, OH USA - Wednesday, July 25, 2001 at 09:29:04 (PDT)
|
once a few years ago, my
wife and i were travling from southeast la. heading north towards
missippi, in route to a weekend get away, when we noticed an odd object in
the sky. it was late spring early summer typical off afternoon showers in
this region of the country. it had persisted into the late evening, the
storm had already pasted over us a few hours earlier moving northeast. it
appeared in a large round circlular form approx. the size of a soccer
ball, (i estamate it at that size from my perspective. it appeared to me,
based on distance, to be much larger had i been closer.) it was hot pink
in color ,lighter in some places and darker in others. it had brighter
sparks that ran within it. it lasted several hours and we would assume it
had disappered only to be spotted again around the next curve or above the
next tree line. if i had had a camera handy i would have taken a picture,
(but, i was sure that by the time it would have taken to stop and dig it
out it would have vanished). when i returned homemy wife and i were afarid
to mention it to anyone other than close family members for fear of being
called "crazy." (we didn't know what ball lightning was at the time. i had
never heard it, nor had my wife.) a few weeks had past when my mom said it
could've been ball lightning, i ask what she was talking about, and she
replied "the thing you saw in the sky. i had mentioned to a friend and he
said it was probably ball lightning." the next day on the news, the
weather man(bob breck channel 6 in n.o.0)described in brief, ball
lightning. my wife and i are still able to sleep at night insteand of
worring if were going to be abducted by aliens. ha ha.
wilson,k <
n/a>
covington, la USA - Wednesday, July 25, 2001 at 09:03:54 (PDT)
|
When I was four I was
frightened of thunder storms so I hide under the table usually. Our table
was next to a patio door and once I vividly remember this football sized
ball of light just hovering around outside. My parents were in the same
room, but I just watched the ball dumbstruck, until it disappeared. I was
literally inches away from it behind the glass. Thought I must have been
going mad until I saw a documentary on T.V some years later. Really
weird
Susie <
Susie264 a excite com>
N.Yorks, England - Wednesday, July 25, 2001 at 08:54:31 (PDT)
|
Ok, this strike happened on.
. . well today, I was sitting on my bed and playing my playstation when
all of a sudden I heard a faint hissing sound then I say a fairly large
electric ball hit my hand and it made a really big Snapping sound almost
like a firecracker. It didnt burn me but it made my hand numb for about a
minute I need to figuire out if this was ball lightning or not. There was
no evidence of burns on my house but My neighbors house's microwave
shorted out, the stove was friend and my other neighbors Antennae was hit
Iguess shortly before I was hit. You can e-mail me at Gexpunk14 a aol com
Please give me information.
Kyle <
Gexpunk14 a aol com>
Muskegon, MI USA - Monday, July 23, 2001 at 17:25:42 (PDT)
|
Summer 1969. It was another
terrifying Florida electrical storm. The mid and late 1960's seemed to
have more vicious lightning storms in number and closeness, then the
1970's, 80's or 90's. I think it was related to more cold air aloft
intrusions then we have experienced since. When you have a 500mb
temperature of -10 Celsius or colder here in Florida during summertime it
contributes to a high lightning strike frequency. I was in the kitchen of
my parents home. I observed lightning strike an oak tree ( rare) in our
back yard.
A second later a ball of lightning (plasma) about the size of a basketball
and as bright as an arc welder, rolled off the tree about 6 feet off the
ground. The ball made a loud buzzing sound as it slowly moved towards and
hit our large in wall air conditioning unit, knocking it out. My mother
saw a blue flame shoot out of the air conditioner about 6 feet long. The
ball then moved onto the chain link fence in our back yard, accelerated
and hopped succeeding chain link fences for about 2 blocks. The ball then
ran out of chain link fence where it terminated at the corner of a
neighbors stucco and block house, blowing a very large hole in the house.
As the ball traveled through the neighborhood, it also knocked a man off
of his porch swing, causing minor injury.
Thomas Giella <
fmci a tampabay.rr com>
Plant City, FL USA - Saturday, July 21, 2001 at 13:16:58 (PDT)
|
I'm not entirely sure this
has anything to do with ball lights but I can vividly recall, that when I
was around 5 years old I was looking out of my bedroom window one morning.
There was a grassy area outside of our house (a green) as we in England
would call.
On the grass there was a tiny ball of light maybe just bigger than a golf
ball. It was moving around in the same place and creating what I can only
recall as frosted rings on the grass. I assumed this light to be a fairy
and as I've got older, have even wondered if I was hallucinating until I
read about ball lightning and balls of light. I don't believe this memory
would stay so vivid in my mind had it not been real. This was happening
around 5 - 6am in the morning. It would be great to have some theories on
this.
Susan Thompson <
susan.a.thompson a man.ac.uk>
Manchester, UK - Thursday, July 19, 2001 at 08:14:35 (PDT)
|
In the mid seventies I saw
the phenomena what may be called ball lightening. As a child my family
used to go on holiday in Wales, and stay on farm guest houses. I was
helping the people who owned the guest house load up a tractor's trailer
with hey in the middle of a field. It was getting dark and a very large
thunder storm started, so we headed back with me sitting on the back of
the trailer. On the way back across the fields I saw a glowing ball
(around the size of a small football), at first I thought it was fire but
really it was more like red hot plasma. It floated parallel with us for
about a minute, travelling between 5 and 10 mph, then disappeared into the
ground. I have not told many people because when you do you get the look,
if you know what I mean? Nice to know I'm not the only one that's seen
this. M:)
Martin <
mcjp a mpigden.freeserve.co.uk>
London, UK - Monday, July 09, 2001 at 17:11:18 (PDT)
|
Ball Lightning. Time 3:45 PM
October 30 1996. Place road to Wombian Caves Mittagong NSW AU.
Conditions: Overcast, very dark sky, rain iminent. Travelling from the
caves to Mittagong I was in a convoy of 4x4s behind a ford ute. The ute
suddely veered off the road and bounced off a few trees to the left. The
White Landcruiser in front veered right and arounf the ute. I noticed a
bright orange glow which was north (right side of the road) and turned to
look. Travelling 5-6 foot above and parallel with the ground near a
vehicle recess in the 4 wire fence was a glowing ball about the size of a
soccer ball (about 10 inches) in diameter. It was moving in a direction
parallel to the road (and fence line) at around 30 MPH. It was strangely
deliberate in it's movement, and unaffected by the raging winds. It was
not raining at that spot on the road though it was raining just previously
on the same road. The ground was a little wet where we saw the ball, but
not raining. It was the same colour as a sodium lamp. No loud noises were
heard other than my engine wich never faulted. The ball was around 20 foot
away from the car (1984 Subaru 4x4 1800). It lasted around 10-15
seconds.
Garret Krampe <
garret a satix.net>
Ashfiled, WA AUSTRALIA - Sunday, July 08, 2001 at 06:55:04 (PDT)
|
last nite i awoke during a
storm went to close the window and up in the sky was what i first thought
was a flare then maybe a firework but it was a bright orange ball and it
just moved maybe 10-20mph straight and slightly down till it was behind a
house, I have never seen anything like it but see its the same as one of
the other post here must be Orange ball lightning?
C <
c098 a aol com>
Chicago sub, il USA - Saturday, July 07, 2001 at 21:34:31 (PDT)
|
My husband, my daughter and
I were watching TV at about dusk when an extremely bright flash of light
lit up the windows. The TV flickered and the power went out. I
immediately looked out the window and saw a bright flourescent green ball
a bit bigger than a basketball land by our garage. When we ran out to see
it, a car drove by and a man yelled "Did you see that?" He and his wife
stopped and told us that he had seen a big ball of yellow-white light come
over our neighbors house, fly over our field about 600 feet, turn blue,
explode and a green ball landed by our driveway. The neighbor whose house
it passed over saw a bright flash heard a loud hum like a generator. She
ran out and saw the same thing. She said she could see light or energy
spinning inside it. It made the lights go on in our garage. There was no
trace of anything on the ground.
Barbara Morris < bjmorris a jps.net>
Upper Lake, Ca
USA - Friday, July 06, 2001 at 23:17:15 (PDT) |
FT Leavenworth Kansas on a
hot summer day 1974 or 75. It was on a very hot summer day and a storm was
quickly approaching. The doors and most of the windows of the barracks
were open due to the lack of decent air conditioning. Myself and several
other people were sitting in the tv lounge when a blue ball of lightning
approx 1 1/2 feet in diameter went through the building. It actually
traveled quite fast down the hallway and made an s-curve as it followed
the wind draft down the hallway and exited out a window. All of us where
standing there slack jawed in disbelief. It did not leave any burn marks
but did leave a burnt smell in the air. Very Very Awesome.
Don Rebert <
drebert a myexcel com>
San Antonio, TX USA - Tuesday, June 26, 2001 at 20:04:04 (PDT)
|
About 1965, during a
thunderstorm at night in my room,(Iwas 15) my girlfriend and I had the
lights mostly off and were telling (no Im not making this up) ghost
stories. During one, a yellow ball about the size of a basketball came it
seemed from the wall and rolled aound in the air for a couple of minutes,
and went what appearred to be into the opposite wall. I always believed we
had experienced a disembodied being or something like that, but now i
think it must have been a lightning ball!
Paula Johnson <
voixesprit a msn com>
acoma, Wa USA - Tuesday, June 26, 2001 at 07:20:16 (PDT)
|
In 1943, I was taking a bath
in an old metal wash tub on the farm when a hugh sky to earth lighting
storm began. This was in southeast Kansas. I thought nothing of it until
a large orange ball of light came through the window that I had the blind
pulled and it only took a breif second for the ball to hit me. I was so
frightened that I though that I was dead. I remember jumping up and
running into another room. There was a red mark on one leg and the
opposite arm where they touched the metal tub.
It took at least fifty years for me to be able to relax whenever it
rained. Prior to that I would break out in a sweat and could hardly relax
until the storm was well over and gone. The only thing I could think of
was "ball lighting", but I could never find out anything about it until I
check this web site. Ball lighting or just lighting?
Richard Harris <
jodyharris a juno com>
Wichita, Ks USA - Tuesday, June 19, 2001 at 16:00:26 (PDT)
|
I also saw ball lightning as
a child, about 7. My father and I were putting screen windows on our farm
house when a thunderstorm with heavy rain suddenly came up. We went
inside and before we could close the windows a bluish-white softball-sized
ball of light floated in an open window. It floated quite close to me and
I could see brighter lines of white writhing on the surface. The ball
floated in a straight line about three feet off the floor across the room
and out another window. Seconds later there was a pop like a firecracker
with a flash of light. I could taste ozone in the back of my mouth. My
father said he had seen the phenomena once before in the field.
Darrel Ibeling <
narsha a citilink com>
Plymouth, Minnesota USA - Tuesday, June 19, 2001 at 14:04:44 (PDT)
|
As I was traveling from
Virginia to Colorado back in 1994, I pulled into this little gas station
to refuel in Albuquerque,NM when as I was stretching I noticed a(bluish)
object traveling at low speed across the ground of the field that
surrounded the station. Soon other customers began to share in the
spectacle of this ball of lightning. It was an amazing experience that we
talked about even after it was gone. I feel lucky to have shared that
phenomena with those people that day!
!
DWorsham <
devworsh a msn com>
Tarpon Springs , FL USA - Monday, June 18, 2001 at 22:41:37 (PDT)
|
My Mother in law (when she
was a girl) was in a house and as the usual lightning started coming
closer and closer. A "fireball" came through the front door travelled
through the house and straight out the back door. No details of colour
etc. I could ask her if any one is interested
Chris <
applez a iprimus com.au>
Gold coast, QLD Australia - Sunday, June 17, 2001 at 20:32:12 (PDT)
|
Just last wknd I had an
encounter with ball lightning. It had been quite hot and the bugs had been
vicious. So when the cloud cover came in and the wind picked up I thought
it was a good time for a walk down some woods roads. Shortly after I
started my walk the rain came and thunder and lightning started. I stood
under some trees for cover from the rain. Looking ahead there was about
100yds. of trees then open meadow (created by a beaver run). Then I saw
what looked like a big headlight coming at me though the trees about 4 ft.
off the ground. The thunder which immediately followed (almost
simutaneously) seemed to be right on top of me. I jumped around trying to
decide which way to run or dive (as if that might help). When the thunder
stopped the ball of light was gone. The ball appeared to be bright white
to me and about as big as a basketball. The movement was all horizontal
and slow. Truly amazing!
Geoff Smith <
gssmith a midcoast com>
Liberty, ME USA - Friday, June 15, 2001 at 02:59:21 (PDT)
|
Myself and a whole campsite
located on Cape Cod Massachussetts wtnessed ball lightning about 3am in
the morning. All campers had to evacuate tents since at first we thought
we were being bombed but then when we got out of our tents and saw big
balls of lighting appearing in mid-air. Of course we went inside the
camping grounds building to protect ourselves.
j.puliafito <
vulpecular a aol com>
ny, ny USA - Thursday, June 14, 2001 at 17:13:27 (PDT)
|
On June 11, 2001 6:30pm CST
at the Minneapolis International Airport at Gate G16 an occurence of ball
lightning was observed. A severe thunderstorm had just passed which
caused the closure of the airport. A yellow sphere formed above the tail
fin of a Northwest flight docked at G16. It then droped approxiamately
3', touched the tail fin and exploded in a shower of sparks and a loud
boom similar to a 4th of July rocket. Many people observed the ball and
more jumped when the explosion occurred. This is the second time I have
seen this phenomena, once before when I was 15 years old, 30 years ago.
Jay Stapleton <
jay a callone com>
Van Nuys, CA USA - Wednesday, June 13, 2001 at 13:50:31 (PDT)
|
Ball lightning is definitely
real. In the summer of 1975 I was almost eight years old, and I was
living with my grandparents in Clearwater, Florida, which gets severe
thunderstorms from the Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay ("most lightning
strikes in the USA"). The usual summer afternoon thunderstorm was raging,
and then suddenly we heard a loud KABOOM from the back yard. My
grandfather, grandmother and I ran to look out of the back window, and
there were several glowing yellow-orange balls of light bouncing down the
main transformer pole at the side of the yard, which had apparently been
hit. As we watched, they came down the pole onto the ground, and bounced
away in formation around the side of the house toward the front yard, out
of sight. We ran to the front window. They came out of the side yard,
still bouncing gently, and -- this is where the really weird part starts
-- they hit the sidewalk, turned left, and went straight down the sidewalk
past our neighbors' houses until they were out of sight. (We were all
bug-eyed; I wanted to go out and play with the bright balls, but my
grandma wouldn't let me!) As we all stood there talking about what we had
just seen -- they came back! At some point, out of sight, they must have
stopped on the sidewalk, turned around, and started back the way they
came, because there they were -- coming back down the sidewalk, still
slowly bouncing in single-line formation, and this time they continued
down the sidewalk past our house on the right until we lost sight of them
again. It seemed as if they had some type of primitive awareness, so that
they could actually travel and turn around on a sidewalk like a group of
people out for a stroll (although I'm sure there's a better scientific
explanation). That was our last sighting; they didn't come back. This
ranks among the most vivid and exciting memories of my childhood -- I
don't remember being scared at all, just fascinated.
Keri < akeru1 a yahoo com>
San Diego, CA
USA - Monday, June 11, 2001 at 15:06:49 (PDT) |
In our farmhouse
living room in 1950 a severe storm going on outside with much lightning.My
mother was on the couch and I was standing in the doorway. A severe
thunder clap and seconds later a round ball of light camr from behind the
couch and floated in the air toward me.It was a combination of many colors
mixed to-gether,but I remember orange and a deep blue. It floated about 4
ft above the foor and then went over the floor grate for the furnace and
went down the grate.It dissappeared and never made any noise at all. It
was about the size of a major league baseball. This I saw with my own eyes
and I believe it was ball lightning. W Colton
Wayne Colton <
millway a sympatico.ca>
Brampton Ontario, Canada - Monday, June 11, 2001 at 13:42:50 (PDT)
|
Nearly 30 years ago when I
was around 10 I witnessed the occurrence of Ball Lightning. In my case, my
brother & I were watching a lightning storm from a second story bedroom
window. We both saw an orange fireball on a horizontal path cross our
field of vision and proceed down the street. It hit suspended power &
telephone lines causing an explosively loud noise and taking down the
powerlines. It was more than 10 years later that I learned it was call
Ball Lightning.
Kevin Cherry <
kmcherry00 a hotmail com>
PA USA - Saturday, June 09, 2001 at 22:40:08 (PDT)
|
Web Site --- http://www.neoteric-research.org
Papers at this site discuss our experiments producing artificial ball
lightning in open STP air. The papers are in Acrobat 4, and contain color
photographs showing a number of interesting aspects. This includes
exploding ball lightning, ball lightning produced with and without dust
impurities.
pmk a plasmak com
Paul M. Koloc, principal investigator
Paul M. Koloc <
pmk a plasmak com>
Silver Spring, MD USA - Saturday, June 09, 2001 at 18:22:08 (PDT)
|
This happened when I was
about 10 years old, and has fascinated ever since. My mother (who still
recalls it) and I were at home, in our farm house in Millersburg, Indiana
on a late summer afternoon. It had been storming, and during one of the
lulls that sometimes happens, or just before it, there was a loud pop or
lightning hit near by. Mom was in the kitchen at the sink which faced west
in front of a double window. I was in the living room and I heard my mom
yell, and I went in to the dining room which was directly between the
living and kitchen area, and proceding my mother's entry into the dining
room was a nebulous blue-gray, gassy ball, sort of like a ball of smoke.
It went very slowly (or so it seemed) floating across the dining room, and
thru the open archway of the living room. I wanted to stick my hand into
it, and weirdly enough cannot remember if I did? I think I came close to
doing it, but... It wasn't scarey to my, so much as odd, but my mother
was unnerved by it. And we I watched it sort of float in a kind of
cornering movement and go out through a window (closed) in the south wall.
At that point mom grabbed me, ran to the car and headed out looking for my
dad and brother in the field. Some people belive and others pooh-pooh it,
but I and my mom know what we saw, and I really still wonder about it.
Mother said that it just appeared directly outside the kitchen window and
came through it, but she doesn't recall if the window was open with the
screen in or closed. Oh, yes about the year, it would have been around
1956 or 1958. THis is the only time I have ever seen it, but often wish I
would get another chance..isn't that odd.
Ellen Rink Straw <
pstraw a msn com>
Goshen, In USA - Tuesday, June 05, 2001 at 19:12:59 (PDT)
|
This incident occurred when
I was about 8 years old at Long Beach, North Carolina in the 60's . There
had been a tremendous thunderstorm and my father and sisters were sitting
on the porch of the motel which was also part of a pier. I was peering
through the window and talking to them through the screen when suddenly a
ball of lightning came from the sky and hit the pier which was
approximately 100 yds away. My father and sisters almost tore the door off
the hinges to get inside and I ran to the back of the room as fast as I
could. After the storm subsided we went out to find that this ball of
lightning had created a hole in the pier. I will never forget seeing that
ball of fire coming from the sky and how surprised we were since the
clouds had moved on and the storm had seemingly passed.
Larry Tucker <
ltglfr a aol com>
Gibsonville, NC USA - Friday, June 01, 2001 at 08:10:25 (PDT)
|
My Grandfather told me this
story about ball lightning before. He told me about 20 years ago he was
sitting in the living room when he saw a ball of light slowly moving down
his ham radio transmiter. It was one of the strangest thins he had ever
seen.
Joshua Hoekzema <
jdh_10484 a juno com>
Wyomimg, MI USA - Thursday, May 31, 2001 at 10:56:37 (PDT)
|
I am from Argentina and my
experience is from 1996, when I was 17. It was a summer night and I was at
a bathing resort 200 km. away from Buenos Aires. I was fishing with a
friend at a platform, the sky was pretty clear that night. It was 11.20
when I suddenly noticed an orange ball which was actuallly VERY BIG, maybe
more than 20 meters, it was about 70-100 meters over the ground and above
the buildings. It floated like a fuse moving thought a distance of 3
kilometers horizontaly and with a little zigzag movement. The event lasted
for 1 minute approximately, and the path the ball left was filled with
white smoke which stayed there for a few seconds after the ball stop
shinning, then this line of smoke was vanashed. The large ball moved at a
constant speed and the intensity of the light keept until it suddenly
dissapeard. There wasn?t a storm before or after the event. It was such an
amazing thing for me since I studied Astronomy and I read about this
phenomenon, but my friend thought it was an ufo at the begining; when it
began acting like a fuse with such a bright color we realised it was a
ball lightning. Agust? Lepere
Agust? <
agusttin a hotmail com>
Buenos Aires, Argentina - Thursday, May 31, 2001 at 06:31:45 (PDT)
|
I saw a Ball-lightning up on
the west hills during a lightning storm. Is ball-lightning common in
oregon?--Grant
Grant <
grantl a netcentra com>
McMinnville, OR USA - Wednesday, May 30, 2001 at 11:49:42 (PDT)
|
In the mid 1960s a
lightening bolt hit the transformer behind our house. A ball of light flew
in through the kitchen window, past my head (I was around 7), down the
hall and out the bedroom window. It seemed to be following the draft
through the house because both windows were the only ones open. It didn't
make a sound, nor did it have an odor or make a noise. There were four of
us in the room. We all saw it. It came closest to me and had no affect on
me...I think :)
Anyone notice that many of these stories are from the 60s?
TS
TS <
hawk a capital.net>
Albany, NY USA - Monday, May 28, 2001 at 18:32:43 (PDT)
|
Re fireballs/ball lightning.
Not a current one, but a very well documented case in an interesting
location. Check out The Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse history (Western
Australia) on the Australian lighthouse website
(www.lighthouse net.au)
Heather Land <
www.heather_land a roadshow com.au>
Melbourne, Vic Australia - Thursday, May 24, 2001 at 23:38:00 (PDT)
|
My step-dad told me, several
times, about an incident that he and his mother experienced in Florence,
SC. He said that they had just bought their first television set (it was
very small and the screen of it was round). They were sitting on a couch
that was directly in front of the tv, when lightening struck and a ball of
fire shot out of the tv screen, traveled through the air and hit the couch
between the two of them. The new tv set did not work after that. I don't
remember if he said whether there was any damage to the couch. This was
probably around the late 1950's.
Pat H <
gideonsdad a hotmail com>
Tulsa, OK USA - Tuesday, May 22, 2001 at 02:59:38 (PDT)
|
One Saturday in Ohio in the
Spring of 1970, I was 15 and learning electric guitar with my headphone
amp - practicing everyday- even during a mid day Lake Erie thunderstorm.
My Mom had just popped her head in my room to inform me Lunch was ready -
but I was delayed because I was right in the middle of mastering a new
tune off the 1st Led Zeppelin record - 2 minutes later just as I was at
the peak of the solo section, even with closed eyes I detected a bright
flash of light out my window and I heard a loud "ka-boom" which seemed to
shake the whole house and reverberated for quite a while off the trees
outside. I raced to the kitchen to find my family in absolute terror,
seated around the dining table clutching sandwiches - but everything was
strewn with shards of broken light bulbs from the remnents of the now
smoking/swinging ceiling mounted light fixture located over the table. In
the Kithen corner was an open window, with its scorched screen still
smoking. Once everyone regained their composure I soon found out the
source of all the comotion was a "glowing ball" - less than a foot in
diameter which had entered the window at a high rate of speed - It darted
about the room and struck the cast iron light fixture over the table -
exploding all of its light bulbs over the heads of everyone in attendence.
I noticed the "glowing ball's" trajectory path probably went right over my
vacant chair = perhaps where my own head would have been had I not been so
eager to learn Jimmy Page riffs!
Steve Conrad <
skconrad a earthlink.net>
Catawba Island, OH USA - Sunday, May 20, 2001 at 02:50:18 (PDT)
|
One night back in 1995, a
friend and I were in my bedroom talking for hours when suddenly a big
bright light came to my window like a spotlight from a helicopter, except
it was blue and bright green in the very center, with greenish-blue lines
wiggling towards the center (opposite of a plasma ball).It was right
outside the window and very bright, turning the whole room blue. It just
stayed there perfectly still.It was about a three foot circle with a very
defined edge around it.It sat there for about ten or twelve seconds then
just vanished still without a sound.Then a few seconds later there was
like a big sonic boom and one wall in the room started shaking with a loud
electricity sound and then everything stopped. A few seconds later across
the field behind the room a transformer blew up sending sparks three
stories high into the air. By this time we didn't know what was going on.
Then a few seconds later the next pole down, another transformer blew up,
then seconds later the next one down blew up. We were ready to jump into
each others arms ,we were scared to death and didn't know what was going
on. About forty minutes later a transformer right behind my house blew up.
Later on when I was taking a shower I noticed a small burn about as big
around as an eraser on a pencil with three little slotted marks
,geometrically perfect,on my stomach.For years I searched for a logical
explanation,it drove me crazy.I heard things from U.F.O.s to you name
it,till one day I was talking with a man that said he was an
Astrophysicist. All I told him was,"A big blue light appeared in my
window" he replied, "Ball Lightning" so five years later I had my logical
explanation.
Greg A. Gonsalves <
zsnojob a aol com>
Walnut Creek, CA United States - Thursday, May 17, 2001 at 02:31:29 (PDT)
|
I'm not quiet sure the whole
story, because it was a long time ago, but around 1993 me and my sister
where hanging out with my cousin walking down our home street late at
night. We went to the dead end and we were just hanging out there for a
while but all of a sudden we saw a little flash in the tree that just kept
bleenking. After about 2 minutes of blinking there was sort of explosion,
but it didn't harm anything. It was just a bright light that went over our
heads and disappeared into the sky without a sound. Of coarse we got
scared and ran home and didn't go back there until the next day. Except
for my cousin it took him a couple of weaks.
Cindy <
cbivens a .psd.CO.US>
Ft. Collins, CO USA - Wednesday, May 16, 2001 at 12:44:18 (PDT)
|
Quite a number of years back
I was building lighting displays for nightclubs and was asked to produce a
high powered strobe system for one particular place, I setup my workbench
and proceeded to build a simple switching circuit and used a bank of
capacitors I salvaged from a military surplus store, I do not recall the
values of them but they were pretty large, I stacked all 8 or them for
this particular circuit.
The circuit operated on 240volts and after plugging in and turning on I
found that nothing happened, I unplugged the circuit rechecked the
components and did not find any faults, I was careful not to touch the
caps at this stage as they would be at supply potential.
After reassembling the circuit I plugged in and still nothing happened, I
decided to use to trigger SCR manually, I used an insulated probe to do
this, to my surprise nothing initially happened, then I tried again and a
glow started building in the strobe tube, this kept building and it was if
the strobe tube was on fire, the glow got to a size of around a tennis
ball, maybe a little smaller than appeared to be ejected from the tube
toward me, I was sitting about 600mm away from the strobe tube, the light
was unusual in the way that there was no harshness and was easy to look
at, the flame or whatever it was hit me in the face, I felt an instant
feeling of warmth all over my face, concerned that I may have burnt myself
I went to a mirror and checked that my eyebrows were still intact.
There was no burning, or any other visible signs of the event taking
place, I did not try to replicate it as I was concerned that next time I
may not be as lucky but did post a letter to an organisation in the US,
unfortunately I never received confirmation from them that they ever received the letter.
Andrew Hooper <
andrew a best.net.nz>
Auckland, AK New Zealand - Monday, May 14, 2001 at 13:56:03 (PDT)
|
I only gained courage to
share our experience after watching the National Geographic program
tuesday last week. I understood that what we experienced was not uncommon.
September 2000, my Mom (67) and two sons (11,5) and myself were driving
south back to the capital city Maputo. We were about 20 kms away from the
city when I spotted what seemed to be a ball of fire, sort of floating 15
metres off the ground, travelling at the speed of about 3km/hour in a
concave manner, as if it was heading for the ground. It was roughly 20
metres in front of us, literally crossing the road as it descended. I
didn't comment on it as I thought I must have been seeing things (having
been driving three hours straight. Then my eldest son asked, "Did you see
that?" And then my Mom suggested it might have been an airoplane, but she
couldn't quite tell. Then I knew we had seen something very unusual. I
told a few friends and we decided that it had been a UFO. As no one here
had experienced anything similar, I always thought it was a mystery to be
forgotten. We were all sitting in the lounge last week when the National
geographic program came on. At some point, my son exclaimed "Mom! There is
the ball we saw from the car that night!" Indeed, it was identical to the
version described - as a fiery ball, very intense at the centre and orangy
blue at the perihery and reddish at the boundaries. Does that make sense?
Please, if this sounds familiar to anyone, we know exactly where we saw
it.
Nyeleti Brooke Mondlane <
nyeleti a emilmoz com>
Maputo, Mozambique - Friday, May 11, 2001 at 10:27:53 (PDT)
|
This happened last year, I
am not sure of the date. There was a thunderstorm around so I
disconnected all power points by pulling out the plugs. I was sitting at a
table reading when I heard a snap and looked round and about 2 metres from
me there was a yellow fuzzy ball about the size of a soccer ball. It was
about a metre above the floor. I only had time to think " I hope it
doesn't explode" when it vanished. My ELCB did not trip. There was no
explosion anly the snap
Archibald McInnes <
amci a tpg com.au>
Herberton, Qld Australia - Thursday, May 10, 2001 at 02:36:29 (PDT)
|
For a report of my ball
lightning experience visit this web page at
http://www.geocities com/patlawton/ball-lightning.html
Pat Lawton <
pjlawton a xtra.co.nz>
Dannevirke, New Zealand - Thursday, May 10, 2001 at 00:53:12 (PDT)
|
My encounter with ball
lightning occurred near Chicago in 1963. I was 7 and riding in the car
with my father when a horrendous thunderstorm blew up. The sky darkened
enough for the street lights to come on and was accompanied by bursts of
deafening hail, lightning and thunder, and slashing rain. I found out
later there was a tornado that touched down within a few miles of us.
During a short break in the rain and hail there was a tremendous cloud to
cloud lightning strike, the type with many branchings that goes on for
several seconds. Then 2 balls of light came out of the clouds near where
the lightning had just been, they were traveling east on slightly
diverging courses and then I saw another one already in the sky coming
from close to the opposite direction. They were white but after the
lightning that had just happened seemed kind of dim but were still clearly
visible. They were traveling fairly fast but more like airplane fast
rather than lightning fast, in a straight or maybe slightly arcing line.
The unusual thing as compared to other reports I've read is that all three
of these left a diminishing luminous trail behind them. I never saw how
they ended as they were hidden by another burst of rain.
George <
ntme a hotmail com>
Medford, OR USA - Monday, May 07, 2001 at 02:46:40 (PDT)
|
A coupel of thing have
happened to me. The first thing happend when I was about 15 yeara old. I
was at my old farm house. I was in my room with the curtins closed but
there was a little crack still open. Something caught my eye so I went
over to the window and opened the curtins. I saw a ball of light that went
around the corner of the house. It was blue but it never gave off alot of
light, it moved fast but it ws easy to keep track of, I ran out of my room
and into the living room, where we have a big picture window. I was
yelling at my mom to come and see but, by that time it was too late for
any one elese to see it. No one else has had a simmiler experience that I
have read about.
About 4 years later I was up stairs in my parents house (on the same farm
but a different house) I was having a fight with my girlfriend to whom I
later married. I went to bed but we were not allowed to sleep together so
she had to sleep in a different room. After I fell asleep I was awakened
by someone grabbing my big toe and shaking my foot. I am a sound sleeper
so it is no easy to wake me up but I woke up. I never opened my eyes I
just said "Amy why are you shaking my foot" and I could hear her from the
other room say "I am not shaking your foot" and I stood up straight in my
bed no one was there. I told my sister this story a few years later and
her face turned white. She told me as a little kid on the farm ther was
two farm houses one that me my mom, dad, brother and sister stayed at and
one that my grandma and grandpa stayed in. As a little kid we use to go
over there and if we had a nap she would always wake us up by grabbing our
big toe and shaking our foot. My grand parents were dead by the time for
about 3 years I was 19 so who was shaking my foot? if any one has the
simmiler experience please e-mail me at colinbriske a hotmail com
Colin Briske <
colinbriske a hotmail com>
Regina, Sk Canada - Tuesday, May 01, 2001 at 23:42:49 (PDT)
|
There is an old logging road
up in the mountains of Tammassee that comes to a dead-end in a small grown
up field. It HAS to be in the spring time when everything is changing, on
a clear day, and humidity is isn't low, but not high either. If you shut
off your car and wait long enough (15 min-an hour) a bunch of blue glowing
balls ( I assume some sort of ball lightning) will come up out of the
ground and "dance" around the field. It will last from anywhere from 10
seconds to 20 minutes. Sometimes nothing will happen at all. My gradfather
who lived in this area all of his life told me about it just a few months
before he passed. I have heard some of the other elderly people around
here talk about it also. I have looked for this field many many times but
no luck. ( Because Tammassee has about a million old back roads, and about
a trillion logging roads) Has ANYONE else ever heard of this? Please
PLEASE Please email me if you have. Thankyou, Jamie
Jamie <
maxv8 a webtv.net>
Clemson, sc USA - Friday, April 27, 2001 at 13:54:37 (PDT)
|
I was a 12 yr old
ham,(WB2HFS)sound asleep, when I awoke to a clap of thunder and a bright
flash of light. I had left the grounding knife switch on the rooftop 40
meter dipole ungrounded. As my eyes adjusted I saw the spherical ball of
plasma sizzling, crackling and drifting on the room air currents towards
my bed! I was petrified, but when it got within three feet of the cast
iron radiator, it was drawn to it like a magnet. When it hit the radiator,
it exploded with about the force of an M-80!Plasma stability was about 10
seconds. Many years later I saw another form of "ball lightning" This
time I was wide awake, eating a roast beef sandwich at Arby's during a
thunderstorm. As I gazed out the window, I saw lightning hit a nearby
telephone pole. This pole carried three-phase 13,200 volt main feeders
atop. The lightning struck between two of the three phase wires and formed
a plasma torrus that surrounded only two of the three high voltage wires.
The glowing plasma donut was elliptical in shape and perpendicular to the
path of the wires. The two wires passed through the two foci of the
glowing ellipse. The major axis was horizontal, as were the wires, the
minor axis was vertical. The plasma ellipse quivered, growing and then
shrinking with increasingly undamped size oscillation for about seven
seconds, when the size finally shronk to zero, and the plasma ellipse
disappeared! When the glowing ellipse collapsed through the 2Ga copper
wires, it sliced them like a hot knife through butter. The high voltage
wires then fell to the ground with much sparking and danger! The
quasi-stable plasma torrus lasted for about seven seconds.
patrick ward <
pward84 a HOTMAIL coM>
rICHMOND, va USA - Tuesday, April 24, 2001 at 07:38:40 (PDT)
|
In 1993, somtime in the
middle of August, it was a hot night and the AC was on. While asleep in
my bedroom I was awoken by a strange object hoovering over the bed. It
was red-orange, mettalic looking. No noise-silence. it DRIFTED from left
to right in a matter of seconds. I thought it was a dream but a witness in
the room saw the same object and described it like my vision. It came out
of a interior wall of the house and left through an exterior wall-right
through the window. Again, no sound. The night was humid but no storms.
Very strange.
Walt <
bigwtm a aol com>
staten island, ny USA - Monday, April 23, 2001 at 18:07:57 (PDT)
|
Ball lightning is indeed a
(somewhat) explained physical entity. Ball lightning does not belong to
the worlds of paranormal activity or extraterrestrial visitations.
I became interested in BL when I was very young, and actually did some
research into it, mostly by asking a lot of people if they had ever
witnessed this phenomena. As it turned out, a high percentage of people I
asked (probably about 3-5 %) *had* witnessed BL. I tried to find a common
thread that could explain how BL operates, and two commonalities surfaced.
First, there was almost always regular lightning present, and second,
there was, in quite a few cases, some kind of man-made electrical power
distribution/generation equipment involved.
I did some reading on the subject, and had even seen a TV documentary
about BL. As it turns out, Nikola Tesla was annoyed by the constant
production of BL by his high-energy Tesla coils. While I was in the navy,
I talked to a couple of old "salty dogs" that were machinist-mates on one
of the old diesel-electric submarines. These guys could create ball
lightning at will, and they and other machinist-mates would get
reprimanded for doing it. This is how they said they did it:
On a diesel-electric, the power to run the screw (propeller) was provided
by a huge bank of lead-acid batteries. These batteries were kept charged
with a diesel powered electric generator. Between the batteries and the
generator was a very large knife switch - this is the kind of switch you
see in the old Frankenstein movies. The generator was of the
constant-current variety, similar to the NiCd chrgers of today. Since the
generator wanted to always supply a fixed amount of current to the
batteries,
the voltage would rise or fall accordingly. Apparently, the generators
were capable of producing very high voltages. When a sailor wanted to
produce BL, all he had to do was open that knife switch for a few seconds.
He would know when it was ready, because while holding onto the handle
with the switch open, the hair on his arm would stand on end. At that
point he would slowly bring the contacts together, and when they were
about 1/8' apart a ball of lightning would pop out. The ball would drift
for a few seconds before encountering a steel bulkhead, and would explode
with a sound like a small gun. The sailors told me that the bulkheads had
numerous black spots on them from people doing this.
Lastly, on the TV documentary, they had footage of an experimeter
producing very small balls of lightning, approximately 1/4" in diameter,
with the aid of a bank of submarine batteries (wonder if he talked to the
same sailors I did). He explained that BL spins about it's axis at very
high speeds, is a ball of plasma, and needs some kind of ion seed at it's
core. In his case, he was using the tiny fragments of molten metal
produced by shorting the batteries with two large pieces of steel.
One last observation: I had read somewhere that BL occured frequently
between the forks of high power lightning strikes. Since that time, I
have witnessed this myself. In the brief aftermath of very powerful
strikes, on two seperate occasions, I saw a shower of balls of lightning
that lasted for 1 to 2 seconds. As I had studied this phenomenom for many
years, I knew what I saw was definately ball lightning.
Hope this
helps someone.
To webmaster: I added a few HTML line breaks to help readability and
re-submitted.
Mike <
mikef124 a hotmail com>
USA - Sunday, April 22, 2001 at 21:26:04 (PDT)
|
I have just discovered that
what I saw when I was a lad [probably when I was 6 or 7] was actually ball
lightening.
It was Christmas Day, probably 1985/86, and I was in my room playing with
my new sterio. I glanced out of the bedroom window and saw a pink/red ball
floating gently down to the cabbage patch that my opposite neighbour had
in their garden.
Now, I have seen reports that mention these lightening balls exploding
when they disappear but mine simply vanished just after bouncing on the
ground.
Nothing like this has ever happened to me since, but I've finally been
able to find out what I saw!
Steve
UK - Saturday, April 21, 2001 at 10:51:20 (PDT)
|
This must have happened near
1979. My mum and I (I was six years old at the time)lived in an apartment
off of Old vestal rd, in Vestal NY. We used to like to sit together and
watch lightning storms from the living room windows. One night, during a
particularly good lightning display, we saw a utility pole across the
street get struck. As we watched the sparks fly, another bolt of
lightening hit the road. We then noticed something the size of a glowing,
blue-white basketball, bouncing down the street. We watched it bounce
until it disappeared behind our neighbour's hedgerow. We first thought it
had been part of the utility pole, but we didn't figure anything coming
off the pole would be the size of a basketball, nor would it bounce like
one,and besides, it had only happened during the second lightning strike.
My mum questioned my uncle (who was an eletronics wiz) about what could
have caused that to happen, and he told us it was most likely ball
lightening. I've seen it twice since, but never the size of a basketball
again. I didn't know it was a relatively rare occurance until I repeated
this story to some friends and they said it was unusual. Who knew?
D.H.
RTP, NC USA - Friday, April 20, 2001 at 14:43:32 (PDT)
|
When I was around 14 or 15
years old my mother and I were sitting down at our dining room table
during an afternoon thunderstorm. We lived on the 8th floor of an
apartment building, close to Lake Ontario. All of a sudden we both see
this ball of light, rod shaped about 1 foot long, come from outside, right
through the glass window, then pass by my head and head straight through
our hall way. It was a yellowy white colour and went at a very fast
speed. There was no smell or noise and we wondered where it went. It
left no damage, and it simply disapeared. I looked at my mom and said
"Did you just see that?" and she replied "Yes" I said "WHAT was that?"
she said "I think it was Ball lightning." It was an extremely amazing
experience, it came 1 foot away from my head!!! I wonder what it would of
done to me if it hit me???!!!
Jesse Melhuish <
jmelhuish a oise.utoronto.ca>
Toronto, On CANADA - Thursday, April 19, 2001 at 13:39:19 (PDT)
|
It happened in Hopewell,
Alabama in the summer of 1956. Hopewell is a rural community outside
Bessemer. I was 14 my brother Bill was 5. It was early afternoon and the
sky had been dark and overcast all day, as if it were trying to rain, but
unable to do so. Bill and I were playing together on the dining room
floor while our parents were away from the house shopping for groceries.
We both looked up to see a blue colored glowing ball that floated in
through the kitchen window over the sink. We sat and silently watched it
as it floated straight through the window screen and slowly floated down
toward the electric stove. The instant it touched the stove there was a
loud BAM! - and the glowing ball disappeared. Bill and I scrambled
underneath the dining room table, scared out of our wits and I held him in
my lap till we heard the sound of the family car coming up the drive. Our
parents were struggling w/bags of groceries as we ran out onto the back
porch and began excitedly telling them what had happened but they were
preoccupied w/getting the groceries into the house and what we were
telling them sounded so far-fetched that they ignored us, more irritated
that we were in their way than interested in what two kids were jabbering
about. Bill and I had had no experience like it before and didn't know
what to make of it and never mentioned it again. It was only years later
after reading a magazine article about ball lightning that I remembered
the incident and realized that that was what we had seen. It had left no
residue of any kind behind it and had not damaged the electric stove in
any way; it had simply floated in through the window, touched the stove
w/a loud explosion and disappeared immediately on contact.
frank gilson <
ahmistajelly>
USA - Tuesday, April 17, 2001 at 10:11:46 (PDT)
|
One of my favorite teachers
from high school, senior English, told us a true-life ghost story, which I
suspect is a ball-lightning sighting, and that my teacher was unaware of
ball-lightning's existence. She and her college roommate woke up to what
they thought was marching band music outside their room. They opened the
window, and something came floating into their room and hovered on the
floor. It was a ball that changed colors once every thirty seconds.
Thinking it was a ghost phenomenon, they crept over their furniture to the
hall outside and slept there until morning. The ball was gone. I believe
the band music they heard was thunder (it's hard to remember if you've
just woken up), and that the ball that entered their room was
ball-lightning since this kind of lightning seems to come in through the
window very often. When I told my English teacher, she seemed relieved
about it since it's a scientific phenomenon rather than a spiritual
one.
Kathleen Wheatley <
kwheatle a uiuc.edu>
Champaign, IL USA - Tuesday, April 10, 2001 at 13:36:07 (PDT)
|
Back in the 1920's, when my
late father was a boy, living in Lancashire where he was born, he saw an
occurrences of "Ball Lightening."
He was out in the country when he saw the ball come down, from the sky, to
float just above the ground, it then floated across the road and in
through the open front door, it passed through the house and out the back
door, it finally exploded when it bumped into a cart in the field/garden
out the back of the house.
This is not an urban legend as I can remember him recounting this story,
and another one of being chased by a bolt of lightening whilst cycling
along a road, the bolt shooting back up into the sky when he stopped and
dived into a ditch, to get away.
Andrew Hall <
issac_watt a yahoo.co.uk>
London, UK - Monday, April 09, 2001 at 02:10:11 (PDT)
|
The event I witnessed occurred on 4-5-01. The day was overcast and
humid, and thunder was audible in the distance. I decided to take the dog
for a run before it rained, and we went to a park by the river near our
home. I got out of the van, and walked approximately 15 feet when I sensed
something coming towards me over my right shoulder at a rapid speed. I
bent down to avoid being hit, and in front of me, hovering above the
ground, was a bright, white ball the size of a bushel basket. A deafening
clap of thunder sounded and the ball had vanished, but the skin of my face
felt stretched, and my hands were tingling. I ran for the van, and left
the park with a very frightened dog. The elapsed time from entering the
park, and leaving was 3 minutes. My husband and I went back to the park
later that evening, and there was no evidence of lightning stike. I called
the meteorologist at the weater station, and she said I had vitnessed
"ball lightning".
Mary B.
Springfield, Il. USA - Friday, April 06, 2001 at 13:33:10 (PDT)
|
This took place in the Southeast Corner of Kansas about 24 miles from
Joplin, Mo. it was in the early 60's. My mother was very frightened of
storms, tornado's and lighting. When one came up she would get up unplug
appliances, turn of anything else and stand in front of the the living room
door looking out it's window wringing her hands. One night my father called
us boys from bed, there were three of us, and to come downstairs. He had
my mother sitting on the sofa, she was upset. He informed us that mother
had seen a orange ball of light about the size of a basketball come down
from the sky and go thru the limbs of the big elm tree in the front yard.
It broke a pane of glass out of the living room window about 10 feet left
from where mom stood. The T.V. lived in this corner of the room by the
window. She had unplugged the television and left the cord lying in the
floor. This ball of light hit the floor and exploded with a bright flash
mom told us. It burnt a hole thru the new hardwood floor my brothers and
I had installed a few weeks pryor. It also hit the end of the plug of the
television cord frying the internals of the old Crossley television melting
wires, etc.,. My dad had waited a while before he called us boys down to
check under the house and around for fire as when the explosion of this
ball of light took place mom could not see for about 15 or 20 minutes.
She said the flash of light was very bright and they wanted to make
sure of things before they alarmed us, she was afraid the flash had
blinded her. We checked the house it was alright except for the
broken window pane, the 1" burnt hole thru the floor, and the fried
television. Mom of course was alright, we all stayed up till Dad
sent us back to bed. Mom is still around and still remembers this
event. She still lives in the same house, still unplugs everything
when a storm comes up, and of course still stands in front of the
same window wringing her hands till the storm goes away. But has
not experience anymore ball lighting. Is there anyone keeping track
of sightings of ball lighting to see if incidents of it are increasing,
or staying about the same? Best to all.
gstone <gstone a watervalley.net>
batesville , ms USA - Tuesday, April 03, 2001 at 20:59:35 (PDT)
|
Ball lightning observed by my grandmother,(now deceased) approx 1970 - 1972.
The ball lighning appeared just after a thunderstorm passed, and she
observed it "bouncing" slowly and gently "like a bubble" along the ground
in the backyard towards her house. As it got closer to the house, it
seemed attracted to the central air conditioner unit, and "ran" quickly
into it. It fried the paint off one side of the exterior housing in
circular shape about the size of a small beach ball. The air conditioner
was rendered useless, and had to be repaired. I myself saw the scarred
area about a year afterwards, which had started rusting as paint had not
been applied over it. She said it made no noise at all. Strange stuff.
John Link <link001 a msn com>
Palos Heights, IL USA - Thursday, March 29, 2001 at 14:43:00 (PST)
|
I was taking a break outside
at work on Mar.24,2001 at about 2:00am with two other co-workers. I
noticed a bright ball in the sky and asked them to look, it floated
sideways and appeared to be a ball of fire. We watched this odd event
until it was just a speckle in the distance. One of my co-workers was
talking about it to one of her patient's and he explained it was an energy
ball. So I looked it up and found ball lightening, What I saw was not low
to the ground and I could not see any blue in color but it was a bright
ball of flames floating sideways in the sky peacefully. I don't care if
anyone believes this or not it was facsinating.
Christina <gizzydizzy270915 a aol com>
winter springs, fl USA - Monday, March 26, 2001 at 20:49:24 (PST)
|
This happened to me when I was about 12 years of age in the early 70's.
It was a hot summers day and a storm started...short but with lots of
heavy rain - the type of storm that leaves the air humid and the roads
steamy. I don't remember if there was thunder and lightning at the time. I
was out the front of the house enjoying getting wet and as I looked up I saw a "ball of fire" about 2 to 3 feet
in diameter and not more than 20 feet away from me. It was slowly
descending in a straight line and on a gentle angle towards a neighbours
house. It wasn't spinning, it was more gliding. I remember thinking "Why
doesn't it drop to the ground" as it didn't have the speed to stay
airborne. I next thought that it was going to hit the neighbours house and
waited for an explosion but it seemed to go through the wall as if by
magic and no noise occurred. I then thought that a fire would start but
nothing happened. From the street there were no marks on the house where
it appeared to hit it? entered it?
I told my husband about it at
one stage but got disbelief and I have mentioned it to a few people over
time but everyone looked blankly at me and I felt like a fraud.
It is such a strong memory and I'm pleased to have found a site where
other peoples experiences make me realise that I am one of a lucky few to
have witnessed such an event.
Colleen
Kennedy <sgidley a tpg com.au>
Melbourne,
Vic Australia - Monday, March 26, 2001 at 16:11:56 (PST)
|
When I was younger, probably
about 7 or 8 years old, we had ball lightning pass through our house. My
parents had friends visiting, and we were all sitting around the TV and
fireplace. Suddenly, there was this whitish-blue ball of light, about the
si ze of a soccer ball, silently rolling across the room right in front of
us. We were all quiet ("shocked" into silence) as it continued across the
entire length of the room and disappeared through the wall. After a
second or so, there was a tremendous bo om from outside, and that was it!
It was very strange, and I didn't know what it was for the longest
time.
Mary Beth <irish19 a juno com>
Centerville,
oh USA - Saturday, March 17, 2001 at 12:01:48 (PST) |
on march 14 about 8pm, I decided to take my dog outside,it seemed as the storm was calming down.My dog is afraid
of the thunder and being she is just over a year old,I was going to show her everything was okay. It was still sprinkling
out side but we went out anyway.As I stood in the middle of my backyard on the sidewalk,a ball of light exploded over
my head. It seemed like it was just 4 feet above me. there was no loud explosions no cracks of lightning or thunder. It
simulated a flash on a camera. The diameter was about 3 feet. As I realized what had just happened. My yard light had
slowly went out.It seemed so quiet in a calm sort of way.I decided to return to the porch.My dog had already returned
there. My fuse box was on the porch so I decided to go on in.When I did I reported to my husband what had happened. He
told me that I saw a ball of lightning, I had never heard of such a thing.I then went to report to the electric co.
that my light was blown out so they would come in the next day or two to fix it.Just then I noticed the yard light
was on. I realized then that the light was sun sensitive and the bright ball of light had made it shut off. Also it
was raining very hard out.In fact the storm had hung around for 2 more hours with a lightning storm and thunder.
Needless to say Lolita,my dog sat in my lap through it all.
Yolanda Marshall <maxmush a networksplus.net>
Topeka, KS USA - Friday, March 16, 2001 at 20:01:31 (PST)
|
Hello James,
I've been reading through the postings of people who have seen ball lightening. Like yourself, I saw it as a child - I'd have been 8 or 9, and was on holiday (OK, vacation) with my family, in Tenby, South Wales. We were in the club-house of a caravan site
(translates as trailer park maybe?), and I was watching the storm, by myself between the window and a drawn curtain.
I saw the ball lightening hover above a hedge which would have been around 50 yards away. The ball would have been about 2 feet in diameter, was orange and had sparks shooting out of it. It moved across the top of the hedge then disappeared.
'when I told my parents, they obviously didn't believe me - very frustrating - I bet you felt the same. 30 years on, I can still vividly see the ball in my mind's eye - so I don't think it's something I imagined.
Jim Parry,
Torquay, South West England.
Jim Parry <jim.parry a bt com>
torquay, England - Thursday, March 15, 2001 at 15:07:02 (PST)
|
About seven years ago, in
Java, our guide insisted we stay one night with his family. I had just
broken my hand and had had incorrect massage from a well intentioned
person. It was agony and looked very bad. Our guide told me his mother was
famous in the villages as she healed broken bones. When we arrived she
soon gave me treatment, and told me I would have no pain through the
night(I didn't believe this) and it would be healed the next morning,(was
she joking?) but she would give me another treatment the next morning.
Their village was high in the mountains. That evening there was an
incredible thunderstorm. The family took it calmly as if it was very
normal. The mother and my husband were at one end of the room talking
together,and our guide and I were talking together seated on low seats
with a low small table between us, both leaning forward in order to hear
and to be heard in this quite deafening storm. Our heads were 12 inches
apart I guess.
Silently a ball of light entered through the wall adjoining the kitchen,
and at the speed of a paper dart, came towards us and passed between our
faces without touching either of us, with no trace of sound or smell or
any sensation of heat.It was the size of an orange, white with a greenish
cast or maybe just pure white. He showed no indication of even being aware
it had happened and continued talking. Was this so commonplace to him? Did
our guide see it? My husband didn't.
That night I slept well with
no pain. Next morning Mother gave my hand the promised healing. It was
healed totally.This may seem unbelievable to you as it does to me but I
CAN ASSURE YOU THIS REALLY HAPPENED .
Jeanie Mellersh <nickmel a ciz.co.uk>
England -
Wednesday, March 14, 2001 at 10:51:41 (PST) |
I've finally figured out the phenomena that I've mentioned below. The
wire wasn't electrified, but what happened was this:
The insulation of the wire was made out of a certain type of plastic
which, when set on fire, drips flame in the from of large water
drops.
Leo Zeygerman <
lz01 a hotmail com>
Staten Island, NY USA - Friday, March 09, 2001 at 11:27:50 (PST)
|
I experienced ball lighting
about 50 feet away from my house. I was holding my little cousin in my
arms when the bolt struck my backyard. I was in shock (not actually) and
I KNEW what I had seen. The little boy asked what the giant glowing ball
was that dissappeared shortly after the lightning stuck. We were startled
by the sound, and then the burst of glowing light lasted 2 to 4 seconds,
about 8 to 12 feet in diameter. It came and went immediately. It was
1988, summer, during a rainstorm and a downpour. It was hot, and
extremely muggy. The vegetation was not affected, but the imprint on my
memory is going to last forever. Thanks
Mike French
mike french <mfrenchy a hotmail.com>
brasher falls , ny USA - Friday, March 09, 2001 at 21:01:14 (PST)
|
A friend of mine spent time at his camping trailer at the lake and durring a storm saw the ball lightning fireballs jumping from the top of the electrical power pole and rolling around in the ravine below the base of the power pole.
James C. Gwynn <jgwynn a tctc com>
Lafayette, IN USA - Sunday, March 04, 2001 at 13:50:27 (PST)
|
Ball lightning
Many
years ago, I was riding in the backseat of my then girlfriend's parents
car with my girlfriend and her twelve year old brother. We were inroute to
one of the brother's little league game, and were riding along and were
just entering one the Atlanta area's typical quick, but violent summer
afternoon thunderstorms. We hadn't quite driven into the hard rain yet,
but the wind was gusting around us pretty good, and lightning was coming
every ten to twenty seconds or so. I was staring out the side window at a
very large dead oak tree standing alone on the side of a small hill in the
middle of a pasture, a couple of hundred yards or so from the road.
Suddenly, the tree was struck by a massive bolt. Instantly, four or five
brilliant, dancing, blue-white balls of light appeared at the base of the
dead tree. The lights, which seemed to be at least the size of
basketballs, bobbled up and down rapidly, slightly out of sync, and
disappeared together after three or four seconds. The impression I got
from the actions of the balls was one of a high rate of spin, each
oriented towards the trunk of the tree, in such a way that they gave the
appearence of repeatedly trying to roll-climb up the roots and trunk, but
quickly snapping back after only a few inches or so of altitude. The
balls(maybe as many as six or seven, though I could not see the backside
of the tree), were arranged fairly evenly around the base, and seemed to
be located, mostly, just a few inches over where the tree's thick roots
joined the ground. On witnessing this, I was stunned and wasn't sure if I
had seen was real, but the brother turned to me with a look of
astonishment on his face and exclaimed "Did you see that?!" I had indeed.
:)
Rex <a_rex a hotmail com>
atlanta, ga
USA - Saturday, March 03, 2001 at 12:30:58 (PST) |
i was about ten years old on
the top a hill side when i saw bright blue ball we look at it it stoped i
the sky started to zig-zag back and forth at a very fast speed the object
zig-zag higher higher and was a large bang from the sky and it shot off
going so fast that it leaft blue line across the sky that was leaft for
about 15 min if any has see something this please emai me
chris <chris_to_old a hotmail com>
USA - Thursday, March 01, 2001 at 15:07:49 (PST)
|
When I was in 4th grade, I
was in a classroom in the lower level of the school. There was a guy
outside working on the power lines, and I looked up in time to see a ball
of blue and white light shoot right across the front row of desks a few
feet in front of me. It made a whooshing sound. People outside the
school at the time said the power line glowed red and shot off the ball
lighting towards the ground, where it entered my classroom. this was
about 16 years ago.
John <Shiva56 a hotmail com>
pittsburgh, pa USA - Wednesday, February 28, 2001 at 20:17:11 (PST)
|
Several years ago I worked
at a summer camp in the mountains. We were at 8500 feet and used to
sudden storms, and we always instructed the counselors and campers about
lightning safety. One day I had just walked into our little store when
there was a large bright ball of light and explosion on a rock formation
about 15 feet from me. A friend and her son who were just outside the
door were thrown to the ground. I thought a nearby propane tank had
exploded because of the way it looked and sounded. Our ears were ringing
for hours, the camp's phone lines and fire alarms were blown out and the
phones were smoking. There were no clouds in the sky, and no storm
developed that day. We had none of the common warnings (static hair, etc)
and it was a round ball instead of a bolt of lightning. What really got us
was that the rock formation is used for the camp's group pictures, and 15
minutes earlier it was covered with about 60 kids getting their pictures
taken.
Janet Stone <janphilstone a hotmail com>
Colorado Springs, CO USA - Monday, February 26, 2001 at 16:44:38 (PST)
|
In the late 40's during a
thunder storm a fist sized ball of fire exited the mouth piece of our old
wall phone, wafted across the room, parked on top of my head, and drifted
on over to the stove pipe and vanished. No sensation of heat, pain, or
electricial shock. I have had several near misses with lightning strikes
and know what the shock feels like.
To view what I consider to be
naturally occuring ball lightning try watching the lights on Brown Mtn.
(near Boone, NC.)
John
Metcalf <jackm a newflorence com>
New
Florence, Mo USA - Monday, February 26, 2001 at 12:19:10 (PST)
|
I believe it to be ball
lightning, i was over a friends house one summer night it was raining but
not lightning so we were outside jumping on his trampoline when we herd a
loud crash of lightning. Since he lives with the subdivisions lake in his
backyard we started off to go inside because when a lightning storm comes
up lightning srikes the lake alot. As we walked tward the house i noticed
a light comming from behind us so i turned around. I saw about a blue and
white light above the lake. It had aproximitly 1ft diameter and was about
3 feet above the lake the outer edge of it was blue and it faded into a
white intence light in the center, it lasted for about 1 minute and in a
bright flash as it lightning had hit the lake the ball was gone. It looked
to me as it it jumped from the ball to the lake, like it was going into
it. Me and my friend (billy) turned and ran into the house shaking but
facinated by it. We told his dad what we saw and he saw the flash but said
we were seeing things and it was probly just lightning sriking the
lake.
JC Alford <JC_14_1999 a yahoo com>
shepherd, tx USA - Thursday, February 15, 2001 at 13:14:33 (PST)
|
Sept. 1986 in Puerto
Vallarta, Mex. We were on our honeymoon. I'd never been to Mexico before
and, being from the Bay Area, wasn't used to big storms, especially
lightning. At 2am, were were sitting up in bed with sunglasses on because
the sky was so bright with lightning strikes as the storm moved in from
the Pacific. Suddenly, in the middle of our view and right over the beach
was a huge ball of lighting that looked like it came out of a Frankenstein
movie. It stayed in one place for approx. 2 minutes, hovering and
spitting flashes in all directions until it just seemed to burn out.
Because of all the other lightning, I don't know about it's thunder clap.
It was beautiful and exhilirating.
Evelyn
Wilson <Evelyn_Wilson a dph.sf.ca.us>
Berkeley, CA USA - Thursday, February 15, 2001 at 10:09:11 (PST)
|
NOT A FAD OF WIERD STUFF BUT I WAS NEARLY STRUCK BY LIGHTNING BEFORE
AND EVER SINCE THEN IVE BEEN SPOOKED BY THE THOUGHT OF GETTING HIT BY IT.
I GUESS THIS STORY MUST BE ABOUT BALL LIGHTNING THOUGH. I WAS DRIVING HOME
ONE NIGHT IT WAS A SCORCHING HOT SUMMER NIGHT AND AS I WAS GOING OVER A
BIG TRAINBRIDGE A VERY LARGE AND VERY BRIGHT FLASH STREAKED BY MY
WINDSHIELD AND CONTINUED OVER THE BRIDGE DOWN TO THE TRACKS BELOW. I
REMEBER IT WAS VEY BRIGHT BUT DIDNT HURT MY EYES FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON.
IT LASTED ABOUT FIVE SECONDS AND I IMMEDIATLY CALLED THE POLICE FROM THE
NEAREST PHONEBOOTH AND THE POLICE SAID THEY HAD RECIEVED CALLS ABOUT IR
BEFORE. wHAT THE HECK WAS IT???
JOHNNY <ZEKE557 a AOL coM>
NFALLS, NY USA - Monday, February 12, 2001 at 21:27:18 (PST)
|
My sister and I were
witnesses to the weather phenomena known as ball lightening in the summer
of 2000. During a terrible thunderstorm a bright orange ball entered
through a window in our living room. The ball floated in the air for a
few seconds before making a very loud popping noise and
disappearing.
Carrie Saunders <clsaun2000 a juno com>
Stafford, VA USA - Tuesday, February 13, 2001 at 21:54:57 (PST)
|
When I was very young I
remember and incident where I saw a ball of light and I was trying to
explain it to my grandmother and she knew what it was and explained to me
it was ball lightning. I never doubted its existence until I saw a show
on TV in my 30s saying the scientists did not believe ball lightning
existed. I remember my grandmother warning me not to put my hands up to
the window because of the screen and that it could burn my hands.
I also remember a telephone pole being struck by lightning and the top of the pole catching on fire and watching it from her front window. That might have been when I saw the ball lightning. Obviously, she had seen it before.
Anyway, I think it's funny that the world we live in states there's no real proof. There's plenty of proof, just too much collective morality documented by our legal system proving that the entire world is incompetent.
Cindy Johnson <LucCn a netscape.net>
Henderson, NV USA - Tuesday, February 13, 2001 at 18:13:50 (PST)
|
I invented a machine in that produces ball lightning. Even after you turn the machine off, the balls still zip around the room. It scared the heck out of me. Looking for funding to produce "home entertainment" units.
It's going to make me (And and an investor) a LOT of money! Write Benjamin 325 S. Third St. #1-115 Las Vegas, NV 89101
Benjamin
Las Vegas, NV USA - Monday, February 12, 2001 at 04:15:51 (PST)
|
It was 2/10/01, a Saturday
evening about 9:30 PM PT, and it had been raining on and off all evening.
I was lying in my bed on the phone when suddenly I witnessed a red
spherical shaped orb floating down from the sky. It floated down from
above the treetops, over my neihbor's house, and hovered in their driveway
outside my bedroom window. It was no bigger than a softball and was
glowing red. It made no sound and moved very slowly. What an experience!
Immediately afterwards, it downpoured for about 30 seconds and then
stopped. Amazing!
Erin <bumpy6895 a cs com>
San Diego, CA
USA - Sunday, February 11, 2001 at 09:19:27 (PST) |
My boyfriend and I were in Florida over this past weekend. There was a
quick moving storm at about 4:00 in the morning. I was woken up by an
extremely bright flash followed (not even by a second)by the loudest crack
of thunder that I have ever heard and then by the yelling of my boyfriend
who was sleeping next to me. He was flopping around on the bed as if
having a seizure while yelling his sister's name. He began trying to get
out of bed and couldn't swing his legs over the side. When he was finally
able to get out of bed. He was covered in goosebumps and complained that
the right side of his body was tingley and the muscles on the right side
of his body were flexed and wouldn't stop flexing.
We got up and walked around when his sister's boyfriend looked out the window and noticed
that a tree in the back of the apartment complex was on fire. We thought immediately that
my boyfriend had been hit by lightning. We called the paramedics and the two of us were
checked out and they didn't find anything to be out of the ordinary but he still wasn't
feeling right.
When I asked him to tell me what happened, he told me that he had woken up
because of the storm and while he was counting the lightning and thunder,
a white-blue ball of light about the size of a kickball came over him and
then landed on his lap. As it landed, the light flashed bright and then
the thunder occurred. I asked him where the light came from and he told me
that it looked like it came from the TV and he didn't want to talk about
it to anyone because he was afraid that they would think that he was
crazy. It has been two days now since it happened and he is still not
feeling right. His fingers and his toes on the right side of his body are
still tingley.
Has anyone ever heard of someone getting struck by a lightning ball? I really would welcome any of your stories.
K Masiello <kmtt33 a aol com>
Taunton, MA USA - Monday, January 22, 2001 at 12:09:24 (PST)
|
Wedenesday 29 of November, at aproximately 10 pm, there was a thunder
storm
in our area, with lightning. First I heard a very large explosion, then I
heard a crackling noise and I saw a ball (white, with yellow in the
center) that at
first was very small and got bigger, about a meter in diameter, after
about 3-4
seconds it went slowly away from the house.When I first saw it it was
outside
the house but very near our TV antenna.
Juan Felipe Blanco Segleau <segleau a yahoo com>
Guapiles, Costa Rica - Tuesday, December 05, 2000 at 18:00:30 (PST)
|
I didn't actually see the ball lightning, but my friend knows someone
who did. She told me once when I brought up the subject at school. And she
mentioned her dad, after a storm (he's one of those Sask Power guys) he
had just finished checking up on an electrical pole when lightning struck
the pole next to the one he had just fixed up. There was a bunch of sparks
that flew off the wooden pole and her dad was quite shocked. Then, after
the lightning strike, a small bright glowing ball came from the top of the
pole and hovered several metres down the street until it vanished.
That's the closest I've gotton to ball lightning...and though I'd like to see
it, I hope to see it from a distance liek my friends dad.
Stacy S. <
nocaps a stopdropandroll com>
Saskatoon, Sk. Canada - Friday, February 09, 2001 at 16:44:00 (PST)
|
In the spring of 1998 I was talking on the phone in my living room and
noticed that a lighting storm was approaching. My roomate was in her room,
studying in front of her large window. I had just finished saying that I
should get off the phone when a I saw a ball of light in the middle of the
room. Within less than a second, there was a huge explosion and the living
room was filled with an incredibly bright light. The phone flew right out
of my hand and was fried, as were my phone line and computer motherboard.
My roomate came running into the living room crying - she said that she'd
seen a ball of light come right through her window, pass by her head and
then explode in the middle of the room. I'll never forget the sound the
lightning made when it exploded - it was the loudest thing I've ever
heard!
Aria <aria316 a hotmail com>
Montreal, PQ Canada - Friday, February 09, 2001 at 09:54:47 (PST)
|
In 1980 I was with my grandmother in Cannonsburg Pennsylvania when we
saw this strange event.
I was inside her house at the time and I
heard her call out to me "Honey, come see whats on the clothesline". I
came outside and she pointed out a small glowing sphere, blue-white and
about the size of a large grapefruit with a smaller, brighter inner core
that fluxuated in size from maybe two to four inches. For perhaps three
minutes we watched as the ball repeatedly bobbed from just below the
clothesline upwards until the "core" made contact with the rope and then
down again. It did this maybe ten times. Then the ball dropped suddenly
and silently to the ground and disappeared. Later examination of the
clothesline and the ground showed no signs of the event.
Adam Spires <acs23 a netcentric com>
Plesanton , ca USA - Monday, February 05, 2001 at 19:16:24 (PST)
|
I believe that as a child, maybe 9 or 10 years old, I saw what must
have been ball lightning. My older brother and I often watched lightning
storms out the window of the bedroom that we shared in Olney, Illinois in
the late 60's. Late one night there was a thunderstorm that was quite a
few miles away. Unfortunatly, my brother was not watching at the time,
but I saw for maybe a period of 3 to 5 seconds dancing balls of light
along the fence row of our neighbor's garden that exploded and sparked
with white light They were not extremely bright or large, maybe the size
of baseballs. I didn't here any sounds of explosions, as they just
disappeared. I'd love to see more photographs of similar sightings, but
it is understandable how difficult it is to record these events.
James Judge <jamesjudgejdj a aol com>
Chicago, Il USA - Monday, February 05, 2001 at 14:22:27 (PST)
|
Four of us in car leaving Casino in Gulfport, MS one afternoon August 2000. Raining to
beat the band and tornado watch in effect. My husband trying to drive through rain that you
could hardly see out the windshield when us gals noticed a bright bluish white light about
1/4 mi up the road just hanging in mid air. Figured it was about 8-10 ft in diam. We watched
it steadily as my husband ducked cars slamming on their brakes and stopping dead in front of
us as brush blew across the road. It didn't sway and was so bright we were trying to figure
what kind of light the shopping center had so high up there ( maybe 30 ft. up). When we got
directly across the road from it we watched it fade slowly and as the rain died down ( No
one was moving- we were stuck there) we saw there were NO wires of any kind or any poles in
that parking lot ( North Gulfport). Id seen ball lightning in VA as a kid in the 50's so I
knew what it was. But my first experience the ball came in one wall above my bed in clear
daylight and flew out the opposite wall. It was about the size of a large golf ball. This
one in Gulfport was hugh, whiter and stationary.
Sher Dietrick <Sher47 a Space com>
Hattiesburg, MS USA - Tuesday, January 30, 2001 at 09:55:32 (PST)
|
I can't believe that ball lightning is not scientifically accepted, it happens all the time here in Montana.
Go to the Lewis and Clark National Forest, and hike through to the opposite side, down into the plains
during the beginning of Spring, you'll see ball lightning storms. I was hiking up at 7,000 feet
when this occured, just walking uphill, and all of these little(6" to1')balls appeared to kind
of float bounce by. You could see them during storms, floating by in the dark, the phenomena
lasted every night for three days.It's kind of creepy...................
Todd S. <beliley_74145 a yahoo com>
Whitefish, MT USA - Sunday, January 28, 2001 at 14:45:19 (PST)
|
Ball Lighting:
I live in Pompano Beach Florida. We have tropical type rainstorms with frequent lighting
strikes at that time of the year. I was driving to my friend's house to feed and water her
two cats. She asked me to do that as she had gone away on vacation. It was raining lightly
when I started out, but the rain quickly became a downpour. Lightening was flashing and
crashing close by. I slowed the car to about 15 miles an hour. Visability was about 10
feet ahead looking out the windshild of the car. I didn't see any tail lights in front
of me or any headlights behind me. I took a quick look out of the passenger side rear
veiw mirror when a lightening bolt hit the side of the rain drenched road. It hit at
about a 45 degree angle to the ground. At that instant the lightening bolt rolled
over on itself an formed a firery ball about the size of a beachball. The ball skided
down the side of the road keeping pace with my car. It was not rolling over on itself,
it moved by sliding or as I said skided. It flashed out after about 30 seconds and
was gone. I thought to myself "that must be the ball lightening that I occasionaly
read about, but have never seen before. I had no idea that the exisistance of this
type of lightening was held in doubt. It didn't seem to be caused by anything more
than the angle at which the lightening hit the ground and the wet condition of the
road. I continued on to feed my friend's cats and thought no more of it.
Gayle Mccallum - Stentor1 a aol com
Gayle McCallum <Stentor1 a aol com>
Pompano Beach, FL USA - Friday, January 26, 2001 at 13:06:41 (PST)
|
On August 1995 Hurricane Erin hit my hometown of Pensacola, Fl. That night, I
had no electricity and it was really hot in the house. I remember laying on my bed
watching the thunderstorm out my bedroom window. Since it was dark in the house I
was able to see lightning real well. Before I knew it, a blue oval shaped ball
appeared in my window. It took a curved path and just quietly dissapeared. About
a half a minute later, my mother saw the same thing while looking out the kitchen
window. I know this was ball ightining since I had done some research on the
matter some years before the event.
Michael Pollard
Pensacola, Fl USA - Friday, January 26, 2001 at 07:23:12 (PST)
|
April, 1974 in Joplin, Mo.: a tornado had been spotted NW of town, at the time
a severe storm was in progress. A black ball (it seemed to absorb all light around
it, it looked more like the total absence of light rather than something colored black),
about 18 inches in diameter fell from a forming vortex overhead (which broke up without
formation of a tornado minutes later)in the clouds nearly straight down (which was odd
in itself, as the wind was so strong at the time that walking in it was hard and all
nearby tree branches were severly bent in the wind), if the ball were a material (gas)
object it should have been deflected by the very strong winds. Also, the speed it fell
was less than you would expect for a material object falling from the height of the
clouds. The ball landed in a tree in my front yard, exploding at that instant and
splitting the tree, leaving half of it across my station wagon in the driveway,
which had to be cut up with a chainsaw the next day to clear the car, which had
also been damaged by the falling half of the tree. The report was loud and very
sharp and crisp, like the sound of an explosive with a detonation velocity in the
7800 M/sec range. It did not have the impulse wave(which hits you in the gut) of
a slower explosive like amatol dynamite, it was much more like a lesser quantity
of an explosive with a high brisance. Being a student of electricity and lightning
myself, and studying the event for many years in light of the best science I could
find over the years, I have now no doubt that it was a lightning strike on the tree
unlike any I have ever seen, there was no flash of light at all, I was directly
looking at the ball as it fell and struck the tree. I had been watching the clouds
for what looked like the possible beginning of a tornado and so I saw the life of
the entire event from it's emergence from the cloud the the trashing of my car by
the tree. I did not notice any kind of shock from the ground (my shoes were wet
and I would have been killed by lightning I am sure), and like I said I noticed
no effects of any kind of voltage or flash of light even though I was no more
than 20 feet from the tree when the ball landed in the branches and the tree
exploded. In any case the damage to the tree was exactly what you would see
from a direct lightning strike even though no return stroke came into being,
nor do I think it was a step leader as the events took too long, it was too
close to the ground for no strike to have developed, and being as close as I was
I should have noticed some effect of a high field in the area I was standing. But
I also have no doubt that the entire event was being powered by the cloud at the
time since any form of material entity would have been deflected by the 50 mile
an hour wind gusts at the time. My best guess is that for at least the case of
black ball lightning it IS the lightning itself, the ball being the manifestation
of the electrical effects following the step leader. That may be hard for me to
explain but you would have to be there to experience it with the knowledge of someone
versed in high voltage (Robert Golka himself has been in my front yard playing with my
Tesla Coils in Arizona in the 80's, I am no newcomer to high voltage), and after more
than a quarter of a century of thought and study on the subject recalling every detail
I remember of the event itself I am sure that the black ball was an extension of an
invisible leader from the cloud itself. As to it's appearance of absorbing all
light around it I leave that one for those who study strange science events and
warped dimensions of space to figure out because although I have always been one
to study conventional science it did give me a lot to think about when I read some
of the more unconventional science out there.
Russell Clift <drvel a shipleysystems.com>
USA - Wednesday, January 24, 2001 at 04:43:05 (PST)
|
It was in the mid '60s. I was about 12 years old. We were at our summer cottage in
Muskoka where the thunderstorms are especially fierce. I have very sensitive eyes and
was was awakened one night by lighting flashes. I looked through the main winodw of
our bunkie down the hill rowards the boathouse, and I thought I saw fire. I ran to
the main house where my parents were sleeping and called to my father, "There is a
fire down by the boathouse. It must have been struck by lightning." I raced down
the hill in my pajamas. What I saw was unreal. It was like a cosmic pool game. There
were globes of fire bouncing around, hitting the ground and each other, going in
every direction. They were as big as beach balls. I was certain they would catch
something on fire but they didn't ignite the gound or trees they came in contact
with. They were bright orange, with little networks of fire inside them like tiny
branches.There were a few dozen. Some were rolling on the ground. One by one they disappeared.
I think most vanished when they contacted the earth or a tree. As soon my father came down
the hill, they were gone. He didn't believe me. I think the whole phenomenon lasted only
20 seconds or so although it was going on before I arrived, (which made me think there was
a fire.) Of course, my thought i was dreaming and sleepwalking. I hardly spoke of the
incident again as I really was wondering if indeed it had happened. I had never heard
or read of such a thing, so i can't imagine inventing it. I only heard recently about
ball lighting when I was watching a show on weather phonomenon. I feel very privilged
to have witnessed this unusual form of lightning. I have never met another person who
has see it. I hope to see it again some day.
Jan Melnyk <Mike.Melnyk a gov.ab.ca>
Edmonton, AB Canada - Tuesday, January 23, 2001 at 11:20:41 (PST)
|
About ten years ago I was getting my daughter ready for school ,television was on a
few feet away from the TV there was a plant ,rubber tree,as we watched Tv eating cornflakes
all of a sudden a crackling noise came from the direction of the plant,slowly a small blue
light like a neon electric colour formed a few inches above the plant like a small blue
spark about the size of ones thumb.It crackled free floating for about 8 seconds the shrunk
rapidly with a sound like a faulty switch buzzing static the room felt odd
tv was not affected no power problems lights did not flicker etc,all my young daughter said
was " did you see that dad"
shaun <barontollbooth a yahoo.co.uk>
stoke on trent, uk - Monday, January 22, 2001 at 07:50:57 (PST)
|
When I was about 27yrs of age, around 1979, we had a stormy summer afternoon.
I was on the porch sitting and lightning struck a tree about 100 ft. straight in front
of me. From the side of the tree a very brite white ball about eight inches diameter
emerged and bounced along the yard as my son and I watched it. The next day I told
my father about it and he says "Oh yeah, you saw ball lightning". The tree wasn't
damaged at all although they often burn and split when hit by lightning. The tree
is still in fine shape.
Gary Gordon
Gary Gordon <ggordon a midwest.net>
Sparta, IL. USA - Sunday, January 21, 2001 at 12:20:00 (PST)
|
I was at my cabin in northern minnesota on a night were there was severe
storms in the area, I was looking out the window over the lake. a glowing
orange/yellow ball of light was sitting right over it moveing slowly downwards.
I ran for the camera but could not take a picture of it because there wasn't
enough light around it. It slowly went down toward the lake then dissappeared.
It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
-Brian
Brian Remer <bri47 a hotmail com>
Cocoa, Fl USA - Saturday, January 06, 2001 at 14:41:42 (PST)
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I grew up on a produce farm about 30 miles southwest of Detroit, Michigan USA. This
area is known for its strong storms and tornados.
In the summer of 1966 I had just came home from high school baseball practice with
my father when an electrical storm started to muster. No rain at the beginning, but
LOTS of very strong lightning strikes everywhere. My father and I stood on the back
porch of our farmhouse watching the show when an enormous strike hit a large walnut
tree in the middle of our soybean field.
Almost immediately several glowing balls emerged from under the tree and floated
in random directions. 3 of them came towards our house at a height of 6-8' off the ground.
The first two exploded when they impacted objects in the barnyard. The first hit
a well head and exploded with a sound something like a transformer burning out. The
second struck the base of our windmill tower and expired with more of a crackle. No
damage was done to either structure, not even a scorch mark.
The third ball meandered through the field and yard about 6' off the ground until it
came to within 15' of our house. It then drifted left, right and back around the
yard until it started go grow larger whereupon it just made a fizzing sound and
disappeard. There was a distinct ozone smell in the area after it disappeared,
but not before.
All three of these balls were bluish white in color, varying in brightness and
started out about the size of a soccer ball. The third one expanded to beach-ball
size and dimmed before it totally fizzed out.
The whole incident lasted about 1-2 minutes and shook us both so much we totally
forgot to use the camera my father had taken to photograph me at baseball practice.
Oh well....
At any rate about 20 minutes later a tornado hit, lifting our neighbors barn and
carrying it over half a mile before crashing it into another farms corn field.
Such is life in tornado alley.
Terry
Terry <tstetler a mediaone.net>
Romulus, MI USA - Saturday, January 06, 2001 at 14:06:10 (PST)
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I was driving east on Rte 90 yesterday Jan. 5, 2001 in western NY state about
15 miles east of the Clarksville Rest Area I think at about 3:00 PM. The weather
was very unsettled, very foggy, 20 degrees F, light snow, and windy.
I saw a small very bright light that looked like it was coming from just above a
bridge that crossed over the highway. It disappeared and I realized there was
nothing on the bridge to cause a light and also that it was too bright to be
anything I could think of. Because of the fog and brevity I could not tell really
how close it was, how big it was, or how high off the ground it was. My sense was
that it was less than a foot in diameter and near the bridge.
About 5 minutes later from the same general direction I saw something quite similar.
I thought it was a chemical or electrical explosion in the air. Unlike the first one
this was two balls, one on top of the other. The bottom one was smaller, yellow on
the inside and orange around the perimeter. The top one was white in the inside and
sort of lime green around the perimeter. Again, with the fog and snow and driving it
was impossible to know exactly how near or large it was. My sense was that it was about
20 - 40 feet off the ground. The bottom ball seemed about 2 - 3 feet in diameter and
the top ball seemed 3 - 4 feet in diameter. My sense was that this was a couple
hundred yards away.
Mark Goff <mark-goff a msn com>
USA - Saturday, January 06, 2001 at 13:01:27 (PST)
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This incident happened in 1960 when I was 12 years old. It was around 8:00
at night, raining and there was some lightning. My mom and I were returning
home from my baton class. My mom had stopped at 4-way intersection. She was
making a turn onto another street when I happened to look up and out the
front windshield on the driver's side. I saw the most beautiful and bright
white ball just sitting on top of this tall oak tree. I remember I was amazed
by it and I'm guessing the ball was the size of a beach ball. I turned to my
mom and loudly told her to look up and out her window fast! But the beautiful
brilliant white ball was gone. There were no other cars around at the time.
We proceeded to finish turning the corner and there were two men standing on
the corner without umbrellas both pointing up to the top of the oak tree.
They were on the opposite side of the street from us and oh how I wish I
would have had my mom stop the car so I could have asked those two men if
they saw what I saw...and how did it disappear so fast.
Pam <pamsc a webtv.net>
Indianapolis, IN USA - Tuesday, January 02, 2001 at 13:23:16 (PST)
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