Posted on 08/01/2017 8:28:43 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Every so often, given the proper conditions, a small and roughly spherical piece of the atmosphere around us will briefly catch fire. As they are best viewed late into the night and have no obvious natural explanation, it’s perhaps no wonder they’ve inspired a rich mythology. Names for balls of fire include ignis fatuus, will-o’-the-wisp, ghost lights, and ball lightning. They’ve been said to hover above graves, dance along the banks of rivers, signal the imminent arrival of an earthquake, and stalk the aisles of airplanes. Even today, we don’t have a crystal-clear understanding of how they form and do what they do. Which doesn’t mean scientists have, well, dropped the ball. Chinese scientist H.-C. Wu recently offered a compelling new explanation in Scientific Reports.
Some fireballs appear to be the products of living organisms. The decay of organic matter, for example, in marshes and other wetlands (or even a mass grave in a Polish forest) leads to the release of methane and phosphorus-containing gases such as phosphine, which can spontaneously catch fire after encountering oxygen in the atmosphere, producing a flickering light suspended midair. Some, on the other hand, are electrical in origin, sparking within the ground during an earthquake as stressed rocks release a stream of electrons to the surface where, interacting with air, they produce flashes of light. Still others form in the atmosphere, usually during thunderstorms, and go by the name of “ball lightning.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nautil.us ...
I once heard this is called chain lightning, but I have never seen it again.
Yeah, but does this ball lightening keeps its word like Scarface.
I got nothing from all that...
I’ve seen that, too, where a bolt of lightning dissolves into a string of pearls. Very weird.
How could he not use the correct name: St. Elmo's Fire?
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I remember in them 60s I read an article about a rural road in Missouri where lights would dance way off down the road. You’d drive in that direction and there would be nothing there...no lights, no houses, no street lamps. Nothing. Always wanted to visit and see for myself, but never made it. The locals interviewed for the article were really spooked. Best guess was swamp gas.
I experienced ball lightening. I was asleep in my second floor room, and a bright flash and boom woke me up. A ball of lightening rolled in through the window snapping and popping, then dissapated.
Checking the next day, the meter base below my window was scorched.
Didn’t understand it until decades later when I read about it in readers digest.
There are a surprising number of crude amateur videos of these things on Youtube. The ubiquity of camera/phones and billions of people on the planet has given us rare glipses of phenomena that most of us would never witness firsthand.
Part of our family lore is an occurrence of ball lightning in the living room of my father’s parent’s house, related to me on some occasion in that same room sometime around 1960, as I would estimate.
The ball appeared out of the fireplace, crossed the room, and disappeared into the base of a lamp, moving with a hissing noise, IIRC. When it disappeared, everybody was in a different seat, staring at one another.
I depend upon my galpal for ball lightning... ;)
I was stopped at an intersection in my PU Trk and lightning struck the power pole 5 feet from the passenger side. The lightning glanced off and hit the middle of the intersection and formed a perfect ball and went up the power pole on the far corner. WOW! Talk about loud and bright. Scared the poop out of me!
Ball lightning.....plasma effects
I once mistakenly pulled the neutral off a 440 volt circuit. When I reattached it, the arc burnt the hair off my arm. Then this 4 inch or so ball of lightning bounced its’ way down the hall. It left about a quarter inch burn spot and grew smaller with each bounce.
Yup. A good description
I once saw what you described. Great balls of fire!
During an earthquake I saw flashes of blue light. I assumed it was arcing transformers nearby because the power also went off. But the transformers were ok.
Named for the patron Saint of sailors, it’s also called St. Elmo’s Fire.
I saw it several times on the railings and flight deck of the aircraft carrier I served on from ‘60-’62.
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