Ball Lightning

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Ball lightning is a natural phenomena, yet as such an unexplained one, which constitutes its position in the realm of the paranormal. Ball lightning is somewhat of a misnomer, as it is not lightning. Instead, it appears as a glowing sphere of light which drifts through the air and matter as well. Its size may vary, it could be as small as a melon, or as large as a truck.

Its behavior is rather erratic as well, because it is known to simply hover at times, and at other times swirl along the ground, or pass through objects, sometimes causing damage. Additionally, its lifetime may be between a few seconds to several hours. Reports have indicated that sometimes, one can see sparks inside, or moving layers of a 'plasmoid' substance. Ball Lightning have been reported all over the world.

Typically, they are observed during thunderstorms, and hence have been attributed to 'lightning'. Because sightings have often been accompanied by odor, damage and sound, its existence is difficult to deny.

Ball Lightning has often been confused with St.Elmo's Fire. They are not the same. St.Elmo's fire is a phenomenon known to occur when a conducting object is placed in a large electrical field. In other words, they may resemble ball lightning, but a St.Elmo's Fireball stays along the conducting object, and has a lifetime much greater than that of a fireball. Undoubtedly, they may be related to Ball Lightning, yet at the same time, they are different.

Anecdotes

It’s these personal encounters with ball lighting that have given it its mysterious reputation. Many eyewitnesses describe its movement or “behavior” as seemingly intelligent, as if it knows where it wants to go. When it enters houses, it often enters through doorways or windows and travels down hallways. But people tend to personify such peculiar events and it’s ludicrous to think that the balls of light have any intelligence, but the anecdotes are no less intriguing. Here are some fascinating first-hand accounts:

• In January 1984, ball lightning measuring about 4 inches in diameter entered a Russian passenger aircraft and, according to the Russian news release, “flew above the heads of the stunned passengers. In the tail section of the airliner, it divided into two glowing crescents which then joined together again and left the plane almost noiselessly.” The ball lightning left two holes in the plane.
• A “ball of sparks” about the size of a basketball entered a commercial aircraft, apparently through an engine airtake, moved into the fuselage, and proceeded to chase a flight attendant up and down the aisle. She was screaming as she tried to outrun the ball lightning. It dissipated quickly before striking her.
• Glenn R. Frazier relates at incident at his grandfather’s cottage in upstate Pennsylvania. “I was sitting on a screened porch. I remember a brilliant flash of lightning and a large clap of thunder. Seconds later, my mother screamed. My grandfather and I turned to look in through the doorway and saw what looked like a ball of electricity coming down the hallway from the back door. It was about the size of a basketball and had an off-yellow kind of haze. It sounded like a large stream of water coming through a faucet. When it got to the kitchen area, it flickered and flashed a little brighter, and then was gone.”
• “While on vacation on a small farm in Tennessee,” writes Bill Melfi, “I saw two balls of light, one about three feet and the other about four feet in diameter. They were glowing with a blue-green light that was about as bright as a 50-watt bulb and translucent as a balloon. They moved side by side, the larger one leading. The movement was quick and somewhat zigzag. I chased after it with a stick in hand, but they were faster than me. They didn’t break up, just disappeared in the woods.”
• This incident occurred in Bavaria in 1921: A nine-year-old girl and her uncle were in the first floor of a building during a severe morning thunderstorm. Ball lightning appeared on the left side of the window sill. The ball fell to the floor where it jumped up and down once or twice, then started to roll slowly toward the observers across the wooden floor, leaving no marks. It was translucent, and the rapidly changing colors showed spots of light green, crimson, light blue, and pale yellow. It then rolled toward the tile stove, crept up the iron parts, leaving a deep groove about the width and depth of a thumb. Then it exploded in an air vent.
• A Coast Guard officer reported this sighting in 1977: “The ball lightning phenomenon was very large and estimated to be about the size of a bus. It was a brilliant yellow-green transparent ball with a fuzzy outline. Intense light was emitted for about three seconds before flickering out. Severe static was heard on the radio. The object slowly rotated around a horizontal axis and seemed to bounce off projections on the ground.”
• An observer in Canton Ohio writes, “I saw a ball of light moving along the ground across the street from my house. It seemed to be about 10 inches in diameter. I saw the light move through the window of a church building. The light moved in and out. It seemed curious and not something frightful. I continued to watch the light ‘explore’ the building, and move into a tree – without any sign of damage.”
• “During a light thunderstorm in July of 1991,” writes Joanna Bosse of Nashville, Tenn., “a ball of plasma about 3 inches in diameter entered through my den window. The ball passed through the window leaving no marks on the plastic screen or the window glass. The ball was orange and blue and made a frying sound as it moved across the room, through the door into the living room where it exited through the front storm door back outside, leaving no marks on the glass.”
• Kim LeVeque of Ann Arbor, Mich. tells this incredible story: “I first saw the ball lightning when it came out the front of the stereo. There was an explosion, smoke, and debris, and a large orange ball. It went into the front of the television set and exited through the wall behind the TV. With the explosion, cupboard doors flew open and were torn from the hinges, glass jars broke, the refrigerator door blew open and eggs cracked inside.”
• In 1936, a reader related this story to the editor of the London Daily Mail: “During a thunderstorm I saw a large, red hot ball come down from the sky. It struck our house, cut the telephone wire, burnt the window frame, and then buried itself in a tub of water which was underneath. The water boiled for some minutes afterwards, but when it was cool enough for me to search, I could find nothing in it.”
• There are some reports of Ball LIghtnings formed in the high pressure of electrified volcanic dust vents, defying their relationship to thunderstorms. These vents sometimes errupt underwater off Japan, and ball lightnings are seen rising from deep in the ocean and becoming airborne. There was an event where a huge 6m Ball Lightning of such type lasted 2 hours and terrorized the people of some castle. They refer to them as Hitodama, and they are reputed to be ths souls of powerful samari or connote divinity.

Theories

Currently, no fully satisfactory theory exists that has been accepted by researchers. Reason being, it's rareness and short lifetime, which do not provide a sufficient timeframe in which to conduct proper observations. While some people reject the existence of Ball Lightning outright, it's the numerous personal accounts of people from all over the world that makes it almost impossible to deny its reality.

• The ball lightning is gas or air behaving in a "unusual" way. It has been suggested that the ball lightning is slowly burning gas, is the radiation from long-lived metastable states of air particles or from particles which absorb energy from the metastables, is due to chemical reactions involving dust, soots, etc., and so on.
• Ball lightning is a sphere of heated air at atmospheric pressure. Uman and Lowke (1968) have calculated the temporal and spatial characteristics of a sphere of hot air. It was found that for a sphere of about 0.2m in diameter, the cooling rate was about 100K/sec in the temperature range near 3000K and that the sphere maintained an essentially constant radius during the cooling process. Unfortunately, the relatively small cooling rate does not lead to a relatively constant ball brightness.
• Ball lightning is a very high density plasma (with electron density 25 -3 of 10 m ) which exhibits quantum mechanical properties characteristic of the solid state.
• Ball lightning is due to one of several suggested configurations of closed loop current flow contained by it's own magnetic field. Finkelstein and Rubinstein(1964) have shown that plasma containment of this type is not possible under normal conditions in air.
• Ball lightning is due to some sort of air vortex (like a smoke ring) providing containment for luminous gases.
• Ball lightning is a microwave radiation field contained within a thin spherical shell of plasma.
• Focused RF energy from the thundercloud could create and maintain a ball lightning. The high electric fields necessary to effect this mechanism have never been observed in thunderstorms.
• A steady current flowing from cloud to ground would contract in cross section in a region of high conductivity (the ball) and that the increased energy input due to the constriction of current could maintain the ball. This type of theory cannot account for the existence of ball lightning inside structures, particularly inside metal structures.
• Radioactive cosmic-ray particles could be focused by the electric fields of the thunderstorm so that they would create an air discharge at one point in space.
• John Abrahamson and James Dinniss, from the University of Canterbury, NZ, have put forward the theory that these ethereal objects are nothing more than burning particles of silicon. Their experiments show that when ordinary forked lightning hits the ground, mineral grains in the soil can be converted into tiny particles of silicon and its compounds with oxygen and carbon. These particles, less than a tenth of a micrometre in size, then link up into chains. The filaments then cluster together into light, fluffy balls that are carried aloft by air currents. The silicon particles are very reactive and burn relatively slowly, emitting light as they do so. Houses and windows generally have cracks in them, which would allow for them to.

Characteristics

Occurrence
Most observations of ball lightning are made during thunderstorm activity. Most, but not all, of thunderstorm-related ball lightning appear almost simultaneously with a cloud-to-ground lightning discharge. These ball lightnings appear within a few meters of the ground. Sometimes ball lightnings are reported to occur near the ground in the absence of a lightning discharge. Ball lightnings have also been observed to hang in mid-air far above the ground and have been observed falling from a cloud towards the ground.

Appearance
Ball lightnings are generally spherical, although other shapes have been reported they are usually 0.1-0.2m in diameter, with reported diameters ranging from 0.01-1.00m. Ball lightnings come in various colors, the most common colors being red, orange, and yellow. Ball lightning are generally not exceptionally bright, but can be seen clearly in daylight. They are usually reported to maintain a relatively constant brightness and size during their lifetimes, although ball lightnings which change in brightness and size are not uncommon.

Lifetime
Ball lightnings generally have a lifetime of less than 5 seconds. A small fraction of reports indicate a lifetime of over a minute.

Motion
Ball lightning usually move horizontally at a velocity of a few meters per second. They may also remain motionless in mid-air or may descend from a cloud towards the ground. They do not often rise, as would be the case if they were spheres of hot air at atmospheric pressure in the presence of only a gravitational force. Many reports describe ball lightning which appear to spin or rotate as they move. Ball lightnings are sometimes reported to bounce off solid objects, typically the ground.

Heat, sound and odor
Rarely do observers of ball lightning report the sensation of heat. However, accounts of ball lightning which burned barns and melted wires do exist. One report found in McNally (1966) described a ball lightning which hit a pond of water with a sound "as if putting a red hot piece of iron into the water." Sometimes ball lightnings are reported to emit a hissing sound. Many observers report a distinctive odor accompanying ball lightning. The odor is usually described as sharp and repugnant, resembling ozone, burning sulphur, or nitric oxide.

Attraction to objects and enclosures
Ball lightnings are often reported to be attracted to metallic objects such as wire fences or telephone lines. When attached to metallic objects, they generally move along those objects. Some or all these observations may refer to a type of St. Elmo's fire. Ball lightnings often enter houses through screens or chimneys. Sometimes they are reported to enter houses through glass window panes. They are also reported to originate within buildings, on occasion from telephones. Ball lightnings can exist in an all-metal enclosure such as the interior of an airplane (Uman, 1968).

Demise
Ball lightnings decay in one of two modes, either silently or explosively. The explosive decay takes place rapidly and is accompanied by a loud noise. The silent decay can take place either rapidly or slowly. After the ball has decayed, it is sometimes reported that a mist or residue remains. Occasionally a ball lightning has been observed to break up into two or more smaller ball lightnings.

Types
There may be more than one type of ball lightning. For example, the ball lightning that attaches to conductors may be different from the free-floating ball lightning; and the ball lightning that appears near ground may be different from the ball lightning that hangs high in the air or the ball lightning that falls out of a cloud.

Images

Ball Lightning images are very rare, and very few can be easily found.

Simulated Image

Over the Railroad