Ball Lightning: Paranormal Scientific Mystery

Sep 12, 2011
Jill Stefko

Ball Lightning is not Regular Lightning - johnglenn513

Witnesses have seen ball lightning, an uncommon occurrence that looks like an orb of glowing light, for many years. Scientists don't know what it is.

Ball lightning usually appears during thunderstorms and typically glows, spins, hisses, bounces and floats. It can cause significant damage. There are about 10,000 written accounts of the phenomenon. Research to find out what it is and what causes the phenomenon is ongoing. According to various surveys, between 1 in 30 and 1 in 150 people reported they have seen this ball lightning.

Ball Lightning: A Physicist’s Experience

Scientists can't explain what causes the phenomenon or precisely what it is. Graham K. Hubler, a physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC stated there is no consensus.

Hubler had an experience, when he was sixteen, while he was in an open-sided park pavilion during a thunderstorm. He saw a glowing, tennis ball-size orb that drifted a few feet above the ground. It entered the pavilion and skedaddled across the floor, gyrating and emitting hissing sounds. It exited through the other side of the pavilion and floated above the ground. The ball acted as if it had a charge and followed electric field lines along the Earth.

When he told people about his experience, they thought he was bonkers, so he stopped talking about it. Ten years later, when he attended a graduate school seminar, he found out he saw ball lightening.

Ball Lightning: Sightings

1754, St. Petersburg, Russia: Electricity researcher Georg W. Richman and his assistant were doing research during a thunderstorm and were measuring the energy of lightning when they saw a small blue orb that floated toward Richmond’s face. It exploded, killing Richmond and rendering his assistant unconscious. Deaths from ball lightening are extremely rare.
July 5, 1852, Paris: During a thunderstorm, an identified man saw a bright sphere come down through the chimney of his fourth floor apartment and move to the center of his room. It returned to the chimney and exploded before it left, causing significant damage.
October 8, 1919, Salina, Kansas: Witnesses saw a washtub sized lightning ball that hit the side of a building which destroyed a window and ripped out bricks. It exploded into small balls that floated in different directions. Some followed trolley and electrical wires, ripped open a switch box and destroyed a transformer.
C. 1925, Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania: My mother, Elayne Jones, was vacationing with Aunt Sal Jones and Aunt Nell Emery. There was a thunderstorm. Ball lightning entered the house through a window, raced across the room and exited through another window.
Reported on November 23, 1930, location not provided: British scientist Alexander Russell saw two spheres of yellowish red ball lightning years before. One hit a building and exploded with a loud noise. The other drifted away, making sounds that resembled a cat’s purr.
Summer 1960, Philadelphia: Louise Matthews was laying on a sofa when she saw a large red ball come in through a closed window. As it passed her, she heard a sizzling sound and the back of her neck tingled. It exited through another closed window. She called her husband. When he arrived home, they found that the back of her hand was burned and the hair at the back of her neck had fallen out.
August 12, 1970, Sidmouth, England: A red lightning ball appeared over the area, sizzled, then exploded with a deafening sound during a violent thunderstorm. 2,500 TV sets were knocked out.

Ball Lightning: Paranormal Phenomenon

Currently, ball lightning belongs in the realm of the paranormal, as Forteana phenomena, those that challenge conventional scientific knowledge. Charles Fort, Father of Modern Paranormalism, included mysterious lights as a category. Any light that scientists can’t explain is paranormal until it can be explained by the scientific method.

There are other mysterious lights, such as the Brown Mountain Lights, a North Carolina Mystery for Centuries. They have been sighted by the Cherokees since the thirteenth century and, later, by the settlers. There is still no explanation for these lights that, like ball lightning, have been photographed.

Mysterious lights includeOrbs, a Relatively New Phenomenon, have been Captured on Film and sighted. Animals, especially cats, have played with them.

Ball Lightning: A Chemist’s Appraisal

John Abrahamson, a chemistry professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand said that, while there are skeptics, there’s enough evidence to support the existence of ball lightning. There are approximately 10,000 written accounts of sightings in many countries. Abrahamson and James Dinniss have done extensive research on ball lightning.

Thousands of witnesses described seeing a floating, glowing ball. about the size of a tennis or a beach ball. Ball lightning floats close to the ground, sometimes bouncing off it or other objects, and doesn’t react to the wind or heed the laws of gravity. The average orb is alit with the power of a 100-watt bulb. The occurrence lasts only a short time, possibly ten seconds, before fading away or exploding.

Ball Lightning: Research

Physicist Antonio Pavão and doctoral student Gerson Paiva from Brazil’s Federal University of Pernambuco have created orbs of electricity from silicon combustion that are about the size of golf balls and mimic natural ball lightning in their lab. They roll on the floor, bounce off objects, spin, emit sparks and burn what they touch. Most of their laboratory orbs lasted two to five seconds, but at least one survived as long as eight seconds, approximating the time of natural ball lightning.

Their research is based on Abrahamson’ and Dinniss’ theory that, when lightning strikes a surface, like the Earth's silica-rich soil, a vapor is created. The vapor might condense into particles that combine with oxygen in the air to slowly burn with chemical oxidation. Hubler said their work is extremely promising.

Ball Lightning: Mysterious Phenomenon

Today, ball lightning is in the realm of the paranormal, specifically Fortean phenomena. While scientists know it exists, they don’t know what causes it or exactly what it is. It’s been sighted, photographed and created in the lab. Current research to unravel its mysteries is promising. Once the answers are found, ball lightning will move into the world of science.

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