I was riding with a couple buddies around 11:50 PM when we saw it. There was a pretty thick overcast that night, and we noticed it when it came whizzing out from under the clouds. I caught it out of the corner of my left eye (I was in front passenger seat) and as I turned to focus on it it flashed out. It filled the car with a bright, blue light.
My buddy (who was in the back, driver-side seat) was already staring out the window and got a full-on look at the thing. He said it was like a bright ball, (probably about 15-20 feet across from what we all saw) and had whispy lines coming out of it. It hurt his eyes when it flashed out. It didn’t make any noise as far as we could tell, and it wasn’t stormy or windy that night.
It was pretty neat, and from what I’ve heard extremely rare. Good luck on finding your very own ball lightning.
Damned jealous. I would love to see something like that! 15-20 feet diameter is exceptionally large, IIRC. Could you give a guess on its duration?
It’s so rare that there’s no verified photographs, no consensus as to what it actually is, and the occasional dispute as to whether it exists at all. Now that even developing world countries are full of camera phones, it’s only a matter of time before someone nails a good pic. In the meantime, I’m going to put another fluorescent bulb in the microwave…
I saw one too five years ago in Texas.
I was walking home from work at around 2:00 a.m. and saw a bright blue-white sphere of light appear in the sky in front of me, I’m not sure how high since it was a clear night and there was nothing to compare distance. At first I thought it was just an airplane turning on its landing lights but then the sphere shot out flying to my right for a second or two and then just disappeard. It didn’t make a sound. Scared the hell out of me until one day I read descriptions of ball lightning, this thing fits (most of) them perfectly.
Huh, this may be an explanation of something my husband saw many years ago. He never told anyone but me, because he thought it was a UFO and was afraid folks would think he was crazy. He was camping with his dog on a slightly cloudy night, and saw two lights appear in the sky. He said they circled each other rapidly for a second, then one disappeared and the other went flying off to the side with tremendous acceleration. I’ll have to tell him that it was probably ball lightning and that he didn’t see any messengers from the mother ship!
