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.
Don’t know if it was ball lightening, but it was an excessively humid summer evening after dark with a storm coming. I was exiting our shop, which is a remodeled old barn with a concrete block lower level and floor. There was lightening in the air at my eye level (I am 5”3”), so thick it was nearly solid. There were more intense streaks inside the mass of light. It sizzled and popped. It expanded to seemingly fill the space just outside the garage door sized opening. It was intensely electric green and just became more diffuse. It was a foot or so in front of me and I retreated further inside.
It was terrifying. I just stood there until it dissipated. Probably seconds, but it felt like several minutes. I had already turned off the lights in the building, which was probably a lucky thing. Right afterward, it just rained like hell.