# Footage of ball lightning in a storm (Excellent) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 12, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812 "2006-12-12T14:35:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/1 "2006-12-12T14:35:34Z")
Here is a link to a video that was taken of a nasty storm and has ball lightning in it over what is a long period. It’s not just a quick flash and gone. I haven’t seen footage this good ever before. [Video of ball lightning.](http://drfong.blogspot.com/2006/12/strange-weather-ball-lightning.html) ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/2 "2006-12-12T14:41:37Z")
A [link](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040917.html) to Cecil’s column. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/3 "2006-12-12T14:56:16Z")
I wanted to add that the video of course maybe faked as this sight is a crazy shit site. The video is good though. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/4 "2006-12-12T15:12:00Z")
Just looks like a thunderstorm on the Great Plains to me. When you are able to see the full height of a thundercloud (no trees around or elevation changes) in the early evening, that is just what it looks like. The light from lightning strikes illuminate areas of the storm cloud. It’s kinda like looking at cars driving through fog at night. I’d place it in Oklahoma, maybe Kansas. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/5 "2006-12-12T15:26:03Z")
It’s taking forever to play on my machine. From what I’ve seen so far. it doesn’t look like the dramatic descriptions of ball lightning I’ve seen, but then again, that’s no proof. the site says the boys who filmed it (assuming it’s real) thought they’d caught UFOs. Just for the record, Philip Klass, recently-deceased UFO debunker, suggested back in the late 1960s and early 1970s that electrical discharges and possibly ball luightning were responsible for a lot of UFO sightings. See his first book, **UFOs Identified**. I know that Donald Menzel of Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory had a list of natural phenomena easily mistaken for UFOs even earlier, that might have had ball lightning on it as well. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/6 "2006-12-12T17:25:19Z")
P.S. I watched the thunderstorm that devastated Cheyenne, WY from a safe perch in Ft. Collins, CO on a summer night in 1985. It looked just like this video, although the perspective was different. I saw it from the side, and this one looks like it is a view from directly in front of the oncoming storm. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/7 "2006-12-12T17:41:14Z")
I don’t get it. It’s a thunderstorm over yonder. Not even a particularly big or severe one. What’s the big deal? ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/8 "2006-12-12T17:45:39Z")
I don’t get it either. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/9 "2006-12-12T19:20:27Z")
I’m assuming the big deal are the balls of light which appear in the cloud and float slowly upwards and away from it. There are two or three of them, which appear one at a time. I’d say they were the lights of airplanes, but no airplane would fly so close to a mutha thunderstorm like that. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Swan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_Swan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Swan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/10 "2006-12-12T19:40:40Z")
[QUOTE=teela brown] I’m assuming the big deal are the balls of light which appear in the cloud and float slowly upwards and away from it. There are two or three of them, which appear one at a time. I’d say they were the lights of airplanes, but no airplane would fly so close to a mutha thunderstorm like that. [/QUOTE] Exactly. I that was the first thing about the video that I noticed. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/11 "2006-12-12T19:52:26Z")
Aieee! Hold the camera still! ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/12 "2006-12-12T20:05:07Z")
[QUOTE=teela brown] I’m assuming the big deal are the balls of light which appear in the cloud and float slowly upwards and away from it. There are two or three of them, which appear one at a time. I’d say they were the lights of airplanes, but no airplane would fly so close to a mutha thunderstorm like that. [/QUOTE] Unless it´s one of [this](http://www.ias.sdsmt.edu/institute/t28/plane.htm) planes. It must be a hell of a ride to go into a storm in that plane. ---
**Author:** ![Walkabout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walkabout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walkabout)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/13 "2006-12-12T20:06:09Z")
I’ve never heard of this before, but now I wonder if this is what my kids saw a few years back. They were in the basement watching TV when a thunderstorm approached. I was upstairs and heard a tremendous boom of a nearby lightening strike, which shook the house and momentarily knocked out the electricity, and the kids started screaming in the basement. The kids told me that a “ball” of lightening entered the room where they were from the outside door, and rolled across the room between them and the TV. When it reached the other side of the room, near the computer, it disappeared. The computer survived, but it fried every network device in the house (in all four networked computers). ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/14 "2006-12-12T20:08:31Z")
[QUOTE=Lamar Mundane] Just looks like a thunderstorm on the Great Plains to me. When you are able to see the full height of a thundercloud (no trees around or elevation changes) in the early evening, that is just what it looks like. The light from lightning strikes illuminate areas of the storm cloud. It’s kinda like looking at cars driving through fog at night. I’d place it in Oklahoma, maybe Kansas. [/QUOTE] Looks exactly like a few I saw in South Dakota. One of them was the most spectacular storm I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/15 "2006-12-12T20:15:21Z")
Maybe the guy just needed a video “vehicle” for _When The Man Comes Around_. I wasn’t impressed, but it might have been more effective without any words of introduction. Cash’s song does deliver a pretty strong message, and it makes a good amateur music video. Other than that…meh. Q ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/16 "2006-12-12T23:51:42Z")
I’ve never seen ball lightning in person and the only video I ever saw was in a lab. This video has some nice examples of the stuff, and it stays around showing the slow movement of the stuff. WVmom your kids got very lucky there. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/17 "2006-12-13T00:16:28Z")
St. Elmo’s Fire is now known as Tickle Me St. Elmo. That was some big storm! ---
**Author:** ![Walkabout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walkabout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walkabout)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/18 "2006-12-13T02:16:38Z")
[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord] I’ve never seen ball lightning in person and the only video I ever saw was in a lab. This video has some nice examples of the stuff, and it stays around showing the slow movement of the stuff. WVmom your kids got very lucky there. [/QUOTE] I’ll have to tell them that - all they know is it scared the hell out of them! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/19 "2006-12-13T04:40:55Z")
[QUOTE=teela brown] I’m assuming the big deal are the balls of light which appear in the cloud and float slowly upwards and away from it. There are two or three of them, which appear one at a time. I’d say they were the lights of airplanes, but no airplane would fly so close to a mutha thunderstorm like that. [/QUOTE] Who says they’re close to the thunderstorm? You can’t judge, really, how close those lights are to the storm behind them. Indeed, in parts the lights appear to be nowhere near the thunderstorm. They look like airplanes. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812/20 "2006-12-13T15:18:24Z")
If that’s airplanes, then I’m [Ganesha](http://www.sanatansociety.org/hindu_gods_and_goddesses/ganesha.htm) the elephant headed god. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/footage-of-ball-lightning-in-a-storm-excellent/383812.md?page=2)