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Have you ever talked to physicists most likely to be knowledgeable about such?

I have, and they were unsure of the exact source. So the description ‘ball lightening’ will have to do, until someone figures out where it really comes from.

I did not see any conventional lightening strike, the stuff just appeared. It lasted for minutes not seconds. In both cases, it was overcast, cold and snowy.

It just disappeared as fast as it showed up.

I do know it's not a hoax, it's real.

I’m certain it’s real, too.

I’m just saying calling it “ball lightening”

was concocted to make it sound like a natural phenomenon—which it evidently is not.

Though lightening can do some strange things very occasionally, that kind of behavior doesn’t fit any lightening model any expert in such has ever been able to devise, that I’ve read of.

'Ball lightning'

"Nobel Prize winners in physics, Niels Bohr and Pjotr Kapitza, claim to have seen it. "

'Ball lightning' created in German laboratory Wednesday, 7 June 2006Cosmos Online

A ball-lightning-like plasma cloud is produced in an underwater discharge

BERLIN, 7 June 2006 - Luminous balls of plasma that hover above water like ball-lightning have been generated in the lab by a group of German physicists. While they are not saying it is ball-lightning, they claim that their result will help solve the mystery of this natural phenomenon.

Ball-lightning is a luminous phenomenon that occurs during thunderstorms. It is a mystery, however, why the lightning is visible not as a brief flash, like normal lightning, but for several seconds. Ball lightning has never been reliably photographed, nor studied in the lab. However many historical figures claim to have witnessed it. Besides Pliny the Elder, Charlemagne and Henry II of England, in modern times the Nobel Prize winners in physics, Niels Bohr and Pjotr Kapitza, claim to have seen it.

Ball Lightning Mystery Solved? Electrical Phenomenon Created in LabBrian Handwerk for National Geographic News

January 22, 2007

Brazilian scientists may have solved a shocking scientific mystery by creating ball lightning in the lab.

Physicist Antonio Pavão and doctoral student Gerson Paiva of the Federal University of Pernambuco have created orbs of electricity about the size of golf balls that mimic natural ball lightning.

The fluffy-looking spheres spin, throw off sparks, and vibrate.

They also move erratically about the lab, rolling around on the floor, bouncing off objects, and burning whatever they touch (see enlarged photo for stills from laboratory video).

People have reported seeing ball lightning in nature for hundreds of years, but there is no scientific consensus as to what causes the phenomenon....."