Big hairy lightning balls

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

We have to go with the most likely explanation of ‘what you saw’. It could have been a dream, an hallucination, a retinal after-image, or a migraine, or maybe a ball of plasma. I’m sure there are many other possible explanations.

We know that the first four of these are things that occur all the time, and are well understood scientifically. The last explanation seems to me much less compelling. There are no good photographs I’ve seen of ball lightning - perhaps you can post links to the ‘google photos’. The plasma ball explanation doesn’t convince me, as there is no known way that such a ball could exist in Earth’s atmosphere for an appreciable length of time (seconds).

I’m waiting to be convinced, but I want evidence. We all know that anecdotal accounts, and eye witness reports are unreliable evidence. I realise this is annoying when you happen to be an eye witness, but that’s the way things are. It’s very easy for eye witnesses to get things wrong - this has been shown by numerous studies. This is especially so if the eye-witness is stressed, tired or shocked - all of which are likely when on an airliner flying through a thunderstorm.

22

Thanks for this. Again it’s “something” that seems to be “wind-indifferent”. Your plane is moving through the air at flight speed, yet you see something flying around the wing, as if it was under it’s own power? I don’t believe the latter assertion, but if what you saw was “real”, then maybe it’s being perpetually regenerated at a point in space (by the aircraft?), or it has momentum but no “surface area” to expose to the wind.

Anyway, I’d like to find out how common this one odd characteristic is in reported “events”.

Bit

23

It wasn’t. My house got flooded out that night, and everything that happened is still vividly recalled.

This is the only dismissal of yours I find remotely acceptable - though it’s the only one of these ‘hallucinations’ I’ve ever experienced, and it happened to occur in the middle of a cloud in the middle of a thunderstorm, with no preonceptions on my part.

Nope, had loads of them, I know what they look like, and this was nothing like them.

Ditto.

Not entirely sure. Might have been, might not have been. I’m not seeking to explain what I saw in partisan terms - just that I saw something very specific that tallies with others’ experiences.

Ain’t exactly difficult - just type “ball lightning” into images.google.com. Result: 1,410 hits.

Accepted.

Hmph. Been in a number of thunderstorms in 'planes. This is the only time I ever saw anything like this.

24

Very well, “Absence of proof is not proof of absence.” Did you really not understand the point?

Being adamently against a premise without proof isn’t any better than being adamently for it without proof. It takes flexibility to suspend judgement and search for the truth. Once you make up your mind, you stop looking.

Bit

25

Another possible explanation of the ball lightning seen from the aircraft is a reflection or refraction of ordinary lightning in the aircraft window. The lightning could have been on the opposite side of the plane - maybe it even struck the plane (most airliners are struck each year). Remember that you are looking through more than one layer of glass / plastic when you are looking out of an aircraft window, and the plane would be passing the lightning at 200 mph plus.

1410 hits on Google images doesn’t make 1410 convincing images. Hint: try typing ‘alien photograph’, ‘bigfoot’. ‘Planet X’ etc. into Google. But I will do as you suggest. It’s been about a year since I did my last ball lightning image search - I didn’t find anyting convincing then.

BitWizard. Of course I understand the importance of keeping an open mind. But not so open that critical thinking can fall out of it.

26

I’m not saying it does. I was responding specifically to one comment of yours: “There are no good photographs I’ve seen of ball lightning”. Perhaps in those Google hits, you might find something you can define as “good”.

27

Have you considered what ordinary lightning would like if it were viewed ‘end on’?

So if it strikes almost straight at you (or away from you in an aircraft) what would you expect to see?

28

That’s an interesting theory.

29

I’ve seen footage of a CCTV camera operator following a glowing floating ball (which lasts for about thirty seconds, then vanishes) around with remote control camera on a car park. I can’t remember where I saw it, but to say that there’s no footage from CCTV cameras purporting to be showing ball lightning is wrong.

30

FWIW, the Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning):

31

A search on Google images turns up a number of photos which claim to be ball lightning.

32

I recall seeing a show a few years ago, it was actually the “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” show from the 80’s, but that show had many very documentary qualities. On the subject of ball lightning, they left it open, but collected many accounts and such, but the remarkable thing was a scientist who had created it in a warehouse for them on camera with a setup he had made. He had a bank of submarine batteries which could draw an incredible amount of power at once (far more wattage than could ever come from even a generator) and his setup consisted of a sort of hanging arm that contacted another metal plate creating the contact like hanging a jumper cable over a car battery terminal and seeing it spark. The only difference appeared to be that he had some kind of regulator and an incredible amount of power, and where you would expect a massive shower of sparks, it created several cherry tomato sized balls that were yellow in color that drifted randomly across the concrete for about four or five seconds and then disolved like the description in the first post. Their movement was like a gnat flying around, just sudden sort of bumbling random direction changes and then disolving. Before seeing that film, I was suspicious, but after I cannot doubt that lightning could somehow create those.

          --Colin
33

I just ran into this page that attempts to describe some of the characteristics observed by witnesses to this phenomenon, along with a couple of photographs and one attempt at an explanation. Don’t know how scholarly it is.

I was particularly intrigued with the assertion that, regarding the movement of lightning balls, “Most seem to be independent of any wind or turbulence, which causes problems for many theories.” This was the most troubling aspect to me regarding the reality of what I saw. In general, my other observations are mentioned here – none is in direct conflict. One seeming rarity of my experience is that I saw two balls simultaneously.

Bit

34

And here I thought this column was one of his best in a while, tackling another subject where most people think they know and he jumps in and says they really don’t.

I never even questioned their existence since I heard so many stories, some from supposedly reputable sources. Good show Cecil for keeping us honest.

35

In Rydal, PA in the 60s. We still have the photographs of the destruction and the newspaper clippings to back it up. My mom lost all her college papers and other childhood mementos in the fire. There was no dispute about the whether the thing was mythical or not, it was so plainly evident.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040917.html

And here’s another link to info on ball lightning:

36

Got a link to the newspaper article?
Could you scan it & post it online?

There would be much intrest. :slight_smile:

You got enterprise–I hope you join.

37

And what makes you think it was ball lightning and not the ordinary (read: actually proven to exist) type?

38

I always had the idea that ball lightning was similar to the big balls of plasma that come streaming off when you light a toothpick on fire and stick it in the microwave – they move around and tend to rip themselves apart like collapsing balloons just like BitWizard described. But maybe it’s not similar, because I have no idea how you would get similar conditions in open air.

39

The witnesses in the local paper’s article were quoted as saying it was a beautiful clear day, then they saw a ball of lightning bounce off a nearby tree and onto the roof of my grandparents’ house.

The article is in a scrapbook at my mother’s house which I won’t have access to until she comes back from a trip she’s on for the next few weeks. I talked to her today, though, verifying the story and updating the date of the incident to some time in the early 70s.

I did some poking about on the web, but without extensive research tools its hard to find local newspaper archives dating much past the last five years or so.

40

And, as mentioned in Cecil’s column, with flashes of bright lights looking like balls of light from afterimages on one’s eyesight, what makes you think it wasn’t the ordinary (read: actually proven to exist) type of lightning?

In other words, no offense, but random reports from some unnamed person or people about what they think they saw aren’t all that reliable.