Good find, thanks!
Has ball lightning ever been known to cause damage or injuries?
My grandmother had encounter with ball lightning. There was a large strike near the house, and just like the article says, the ball of lightning came through the window and hovered over to the telephone then blew it right off the wall. To this day grandmother will not use the phone even if there’s a remote possibility of a thunderstorm.
Tesla was making these in his lab long ago.
The one time I saw ball lightning was during a severe thunderstorm. I was looking out of the window, and saw 3 balls of lightning fall somewhat slowly, one of which struck a power transformer. The transformer was fried similar to how it would be with ordinary lightning. The slow speed of the ball lightning was what was most interesting.
Ball lightening is no real mystery. These guys are looking for funding for something. Ionized air after the high voltage hits it forms a plasma somethimes instead being a strike it forms sheets (like cloud to cloud) or balls....closer to the ground and usually around areas with a high small particle count (think dust)
I don’t know if what I saw was ball lightening but when I was a kid, I saw these little balls of light dancing in a tree across the street from my house just after a severe thunderstorm had passed. I’m sure it wasn’t sparks, there were no power lines near that tree, and it wasn’t fire, and they sure as heck were not lightning bugs. It only lasted a few seconds but it was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.
Great balls of fire, Batman.
St. Elmo’s fire.
I’ve seen this once, maybe twice. The second was one evening during a thunder storm when I might have been about 10 years old. I was watching TV in my room when this fast moving 6 inch glowing ball appeared in front of the TV , bounced out of the door and down the hallway. As I rounded the doorway into the hall giving chase, I saw my older brother standing at the other end of the hall by his doorway. He related the same experience of seeing a ball appear in front of his TV and bounce out of the room. In the hall, there was only one ball and it bounced around a little and then sputtered out.
The first time, may have been ball lightening or not. It was a few years earlier on a bright and crisp cold day. I remember several people were outside at the time. It seems to me that this was some sort of holiday, maybe Thanksgiving. A glowing blue ball again about 6 inches in diameter appeared out of the sky traveling in a trajectory that you would expect of an object fired from a cannon. It struck the middle of the street in front of at least a half a dozen people and seemingly more energized it bounced upward and away disappearing over the next row of houses and trees.
I haven’t thought about these sightings in years, but they are something I’ll never forget.
Saw ball lightning in my junior high school ca. 1968. Whole class saw it. When I looked it up in the books, the books said it didn’t exist. Since I don’t believe in mass hallucinations during a thunderstorm, I decided that books and their authors don’t know everything, and I’d best check it my self.