Ball Lightning

[megafiddle]

Has anyone ever witnessed this?

My only experience is with common lightning, the closest of which was a strike right outside a window I was sitting next to. That puppy was LOUD. It was the fourth time that the property of the house was struck. Previous strikes were at a tree out back of the house, one of them entered the house, and another indirectly struck my mother.

But I have never known anyone that wtnessed anything other than common lightning. Does ball lightning really exist?

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[Chicory Blue]

I remember reading about it when I was a wee thing and thinking it was the coolest, most frighteningly surreal thing ever... never have seen it though.

--^@

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

It does exist. I was aircrew in the Navy and flew over the North Atlantic a lot around Iceland and Greenland. We watched a ball roll down the aisle of the plane during a thunderstorm.

 

[Aberdumbie]

I did... Or at least that's how I sorted it out in my brain. As a lad in Oklahoma I was always on the go. Walking and riding my bike. Not unusual to have storm activity in the Midwest and there was lightning around. I looked up and watched a basketball size sizzling whatever travel slowly down the electrical line overhead. When it reached the end of the line the transformer blew and the ball disappeared. Pretty dramatic stuff for a young teenager. I always supposed that was what I saw.

 

[superdick2112]

I did... Or at least that's how I sorted it out in my brain. As a lad in Oklahoma I was always on the go. Walking and riding my bike. Not unusual to have storm activity in the Midwest and there was lightning around. I looked up and watched a basketball size sizzling whatever travel slowly down the electrical line overhead. When it reached the end of the line the transformer blew and the ball disappeared. Pretty dramatic stuff for a young teenager. I always supposed that was what I saw.

Very similar to my sighting.
My wife & I were stopped at a red light during a thunderstorm, and I saw a bolt of lightning hit a telephone pole near the intersection.
As soon as the bolt struck, a basketball-sized green ball of energy crept down the pole & continued dancing along the ground away from us for another 30 feet or so, then it stopped & died out.
One of the coolest and freakiest things I've ever witnessed.

 

[blastoff99]

It does exist. I was aircrew in the Navy and flew over the North Atlantic a lot around Iceland and Greenland. We watched a ball roll down the aisle of the plane during a thunderstorm.

And THEN what happened? You can't stop the story right there! Did you open the tail door and let it out? I mean, I know you're not dead, but.

 

[Stewie26]

I have never witnessed it before, a California boy here, but I too have heard stories of it traveling down the inside of the fuselage of aircraft in flight. Yep...that could cause you to have to change your underwear. ......

 

[megafiddle]

Extremely interesting accounts.

One theory is that it is some type of plasma. Another is that it consists of charged combustible particles that slowly burn.

No good theory yet about what's holding it all together in a ball though.

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[tangentmusic]

A quick google search yielded these photos.
Many were obviously fakes, but what about these?

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

And THEN what happened? You can't stop the story right there! Did you open the tail door and let it out? I mean, I know you're not dead, but.

There was no tail door. It just disappeared into the back of the aircraft.
Here is some info on it. It is knonw as St Elmo's Fire St. Elmo's fire - Wikipedia

 

[Aberdumbie]

Saw a new one last Saturday. Was in Oklahoma City and the sky was charged up. Lots of lightning around. Four of us driving a secondary road when a bolt struck maybe fifty yards ahead. We all looked at each other and asked if we all saw the same thing. Maybe it was just because we were close to it but the bolt of lightning almost looked like something between a dripping candle and a fireworks sparkler. Takes a lot to make this old man second guess what he has seen. That one did it.