From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ball lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon, a glowing fiery ball that floats in the air. The ball can be anywhere from .1 cm to several meters in diameter, lasting anywhere from seconds to minutes.

The balls are sometimes associated with lightning, sometimes not.

Some of them have killed people, some have touched people with no effect.

The physical nature of ball lightning is still unknown, despite thousands of experiences of it and hundreds of experiments.

There have been reports of artificial production of ball lightning, but it is unknown if they are the same as or related to natural ball lightning.

There are hundreds of candidate one-time photos and videos at google images and one at wiki image commons, but natural ball lightning is so rare that it is not often photographed.

Future scientific investigations of ball lightning depend on someone consistently producing artificial floating glowing 3" balls or similar.

Contents 1 Conflicting characteristics 2 Historical accounts 3 Surveys 4 Experiments 4.1 Home microwave oven ball experiments 5 Analysis/theories 6 Esoteric explanations 7 Ball lightning in mythology and fiction 8 See also 9 Further reading 10 References 11 External links

Ball lightning sometimes appears during thunderstorms, sometimes issuing from a lightning flash, but sometimes appears during good weather with no storms within hundreds of miles.

Ball lightning can move upwards as well as downwards and sideways, or can possess odd trajectories such as veering off at an angle or rocking from side to side like a leaf falling. Ball lightning can also move with or against the wind. Other motions include a tendency to float or hover in the air. Its shape has been described as spherical, oval, tear-drop, or rod-like with one dimension being much larger than the others.

Colors reported include red, orange, yellow, green, blue, lavender, etc, sometimes transparent, sometimes translucent. Some contain radial filaments or sparks while others are evenly lit, and some have flames protruding from the ball surface. The balls can be spinning or non-spinning.

Sometimes the ball lightning is described as being attracted to houses, cars, objects or persons [3], sometimes as avoiding people etc, and sometimes as moving randomly.

Many reports are of balls following on or near electric power lines. [4]

Several people report ball lightning following their cars, one report described ball lightning following and engulfing a car, causing the electrical system to overload and fail (video of possible following ball: [5].)

After several seconds or minutes the ball lightning can just quietly immediately vanish, dissipate gradually, leave, disperse, be absorbed into something, just pop, noisily explode, or explode with violence, damage, and lethality.

Some accounts have the balls passing freely through wood or glass or metal, without any damage to the ball or material, while other accounts report melted vaporised circular holes in the wood or glass or metal.

Some reports are of balls avoiding house wiring, some are of balls attracted to house wiring. Some reports are of balls touching house wiring and vanishing, some reports are of explosions with damage and wreckage when the balls contact house electrical wiring or circuit-breaker boxes.

Some reports are of vaporisation of water when the balls enter water, some are of the balls entering and exiting water with no vaporisation. One famous old account of a ball vaporising water found that the amount of water vaporised in the time the ball was in the water required an extremely, unbelievably, high amount of energy.

Some accounts say the balls are lethal, killing on contact, while other accounts say the opposite.

Volcanos and the atmosphere and earth around them have been known to produce ball lightning and other luminous effects, with or without electrical storms. These accounts vary greatly.

Other accounts place ball lightning confined in a fireplace or over a kitchen stove (sometimes the ball goes up the chimney, sometimes it comes down.) [6] [7] or wandering down the aisle of an airliner. ^[1]

Some researchers suggest that ball lightning has a more diverse range of properties than previously thought (e.g. Singer, 1971). Japanese investigators (e.g. Ofuruton et al) report that Japanese ball lightning can occur in fine weather and be unconnected with lightning. The diameter is said to be typically 20–30 cm but sometimes even larger up to a few meters. Ball lightning can split and recombine and can exhibit large mechanical energy like carving trenches (e.g. Fitzgerald 1978) and holes into the ground.

A report from an area of central Africa having a very high incidence of lightning said that ball lightning used to appear from a certain hill just before the onset of the rainy season.^[2] (The report also exhibits a reluctance to report such phenomena typical of many people).

Until recently, ball lightning was sometimes regarded as nothing more than a myth, fantasy, or hoax.^[3] Reports of the phenomenon were dismissed due to lack of physical evidence, and were often regarded the same way as UFO sightings.

One of the earliest and most destructive occurrences was reported to have taken place during The Great Thunderstorm at Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon, in England, on October 21, 1638. Four people died and around 60 were injured when, during a severe dark storm that had already made it impossible to see or read during service inside the church, an 8' ball of fire struck and entered the church, nearly destroying it. Large wall stones were hurled far and buried. One person had the back of his head burnt off without any face damage, several people had their skulls opened, a clump of hair was flung and embedded into a piece of wood, many had their skin burnt, some lost their memories temporarily. Other people sitting next to burnt people were entirely unhurt. Some people had only their underclothes burnt, some only their overclothes. The ball of fire smashed the pews and many windows, and filled the church with a foul sulphurous pitch odor and dark thick smoke lasting 30 minutes. The ball of fire split into two, one smashing another window and wall on its way out, the other disappearing inside the church. The explanation at the time, because of the fire and sulphur smell and smoke and tar, was that the ball of fire was the devil or the actual flames of hell. Later, some folks blamed the entire incident on God's wrath against two people who had been playing cards in the pew during the sermon. About 1000 witnesses confirmed that incident and related neighboring lightning strikes and large hail. ^[4][5]

Another report, from 1753, depicts ball lightning as having violence. Professor Georg Richmann, of Saint Petersburg, Russia created a kite flying apparatus similar to that built by Benjamin Franklin a year earlier. He was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when he heard thunder. The Professor ran home with his engraver to capture the event for posterity. While the experiment was underway, ball lightning appeared, collided with Richmann's forehead and killed him, leaving a red spot. His shoes were blown open, parts of his clothes singed, the engraver knocked out; the doorframe of the room was split, and the door itself was torn off its hinges.^[6][7]

Tsar Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, reported witnessing what he called "a fiery ball" while in the company of his grandfather, Tsar Alexander II: "Once my parents were away," recounted the Tsar, "and I was at the all-night vigil with my grandfather in the small church in Alexandria. During the service there was a powerful thunderstorm, streaks of lightning flashed one after the other, and it seemed as if the peals of thunder would shake even the church and the whole world to its foundations. Suddenly it became quite dark, a blast of wind from the open door blew out the flame of the candles which were lit in front of the iconostasis, there was a long clap of thunder, louder than before, and I suddenly saw a fiery ball flying from the window straight towards the head of the Emperor. The ball (it was of lightning) whirled around the floor, then passed the chandelier and flew out through the door into the park. My heart froze, I glanced at my grandfather - his face was completely calm. He crossed himself just as calmly as he had when the fiery ball had flown near us, and I felt that it was unseemly and not courageous to be frightened as I was....After the ball had passed through the whole church, and suddenly gone out through the door, I again looked at my grandfather. A faint smile was on his face, and he nodded his head at me. My panic disappeared, and from that time I had no more fear of storms." [8]

British occultist Aleister Crowley also reported witnessing what he referred to as "globular electricity" during a thunderstorm on Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire in 1916. As related in his Confessions, he was sheltered in a small cottage when he "noticed, with what I can only describe as calm amazement, that a dazzling globe of electric fire, apparently between six and twelve inches in diameter, was stationary about six inches below and to the right of my right knee. As I looked at it, it exploded with a sharp report quite impossible to confuse with the continuous turmoil of the lightning, thunder and hail, or that of the lashed water and smashed wood which was creating a pandemonium outside the cottage. I felt a very slight shock in the middle of my right hand, which was closer to the globe than any other part of my body.^[8]

On 30 April 1877, a ball of lightning entered the Golden Temple at Amritsar, India, and exited through a side door. This event was observed by a number of people, and the incident is inscribed on the front wall of Darshani Deodhi.[9]^{[citation needed]}

Nikola Tesla reportedly could consistently make ball lightning in his Colorado lab, with one account saying that he was able to temporarily contain the balls in wooden boxes.

Pilots in World War II described an unusual phenomenon for which ball lightning has been suggested as an explanation. The pilots saw small balls of light "escorting" bombers, flying alongside their wingtips. Pilots of the time referred to the phenomenon as "foo fighters," initially believing that the lights were from enemy planes. However, there are other theories as to the identity of the foo fighters.

Submariners in WWII gave the most frequent and consistent accounts of small ball lightning in the confined submarine atmosphere. There are repeated accounts of inadvertent production of floating explosive balls when the battery banks were switched in/out, especially if mis-switched or when the highly inductive electrical motors were mis-connected or disconnected. An attempt later to duplicate those balls with a surplus submarine battery resulted in several failures and an explosion. [10]

On August 6, 1994 a ball of lightning went through a closed window in Uppsala, Sweden, leaving a circular hole with a diameter of 5 centimeters. The incident was witnessed by residents in the area, and was recorded by a lightning strike tracking system on the Division for Electricity and Lightning Research at Uppsala University.^[9][10]

A 1960 paper reported that 5% of the US population reported having witnessed ball lightning.^[11][12]

Another study analyzed reports of 10,000 cases.^[11][13]

Experimenters have long tried to produce ball lightning themselves. The earliest scientists used the string-into-the-lightning-cloud method, sometimes producing balls, sometimes not. Some experimenters who produced such balls died, some lived.

Tesla reportedly was able to artificially produce ~3" balls, but he was really interested in higher voltages and powers, and remote transmission of power, so the balls he made were just a curiosity.

There is a scientific ball lightning group, but they keep a low profile. They do have a regular symposium called "international symposium on ball lightning": 2001[11], 2004, 2006 [12], 2008[13].

A related group uses the generic name "unconventional plasmas".[14]

Gerd Fussmann, of the Max-Planck-Institut, has reportedly been consistently making ~10 cm balls from high voltage pulse discharges in water. [15]

Two Brazilian scientists, Antonio Pavão and Gerson Paiva, of the Federal University of Pernambuco [16], have reportedly consistently made small long-lasting balls in 2007.[17]

Many modern experiments refer to small rising glowing balls from a lit or recently extinguished match placed in an ordinary microwave oven.

The balls are usually bright and bluish in color, and rise to roll around the ceiling of the microwave chamber, with a larger ball of fire, smoke and a buzzing sound. The balls can damage the oven, denting the chamber wall or ceiling, as well as leaving burn marks. Some experiments describe covering the lit object with an inverted glass jar, which contains the ball and flame so they don't do damage. Some experimenters have instructions, photos, and videos of the balls.^[14][15][16]

Although these balls, since they are round, glowing, and rising, are called ball lightning, it has not yet been proven that they are related to natural ball lightning.

Currently there is no widely accepted explanation of what exactly ball lightning is, despite several theories that have been advanced since the phenomenon was brought into the scientific realm by the French Academy scientist François Arago.

An early attempt to explain ball lightning was recorded by Nikola Tesla in 1904.^[17]

Difficult features of the lightning include its persistence and its near-neutral buoyancy in air. A popular hypothesis is that ball lightning is a highly ionized plasma contained by self-generated magnetic fields: a plasmoid.^{[citation needed]} This hypothesis is not initially credible. If the gas is highly ionized, and if it is near thermodynamic equilibrium, then it must be very hot. Since it must be in pressure equilibrium with the surrounding air, it will be much lighter and hence float up rapidly. Magnetic fields, if present, might provide the plasmoid's coherence, but will not reduce this buoyancy. In addition, a hot plasma cannot persist for long because of recombination and heat conduction.

There may, however, be some novel form of plasma for which the above arguments do not fully apply. For example, a plasma may be composed of negative and positive ions, rather than electrons and positive ions. In that case, the recombination may be rather slow even at ambient temperature. One such theory involves positively charged hydrogen and negatively charged nitrites (NO₂^–) and nitrates (NO₃^–). In this theory, the role of the ions as seeds for the condensation of water droplets is important.^{[citation needed]}

If ball lightning releases energy stored in chemical form, its persistence and neutral buoyancy might be more easily understood. The reaction might proceed slowly due to kinetic or geometric constraints, and the reaction could take place near ambient temperature. One of the first detailed theories of this sort involved the oxidation of nanoparticle networks formed when normal lightning strikes on soil.^[18]

The coherence of the collection of nanoparticles may be enhanced by vortex motion, like that of a smoke ring.^[19]

A proposed explanation^{[verification needed]} for the numerous colours reported for ball lightning is the following known gas phase chemoluminescent reaction:

NO+O₃ → NO₂[◊]+ O₂

Broadband visible light is emitted from the NO₂ as it reverts to a lower energy state. This explanation is supported by the numerous witness accounts of the presence of ozone.

Currently, one prominent theory suggests that ball lightning is nothing more than burning vaporized silicon. When lightning strikes earth's silica-rich soil, the silicon could be instantly vaporized, the vapor itself condensing and burning slowly via the oxygen in the surrounding air. A recently published experimental investigation of this effect by evaporating pure silicon with an electric arc reported producing "luminous balls with lifetime in the order of seconds".^[20][21][22] Videos of this experiment are available online.^[23]

Another current theory published by Oleg Meshcheryakov suggests that ball lightning is made of composite nano or submicrometre particles, each particle constituting a nanobattery. A surface discharge shorts these batteries, resulting in a current which forms the ball. His model is described as an aerosol, but not aerogel, model that explains all the observable properties and processes of ball lightning.^[24][25]

Singer in his monograph, The Nature of Ball Lightning, published by Plenum Press critiques several classes of theory. Most theory can match some of the reported properties of ball lightning but not all. In addition there are several difficulties that need to be overcome with many of the proposed theories.

J. Pace VanDevender separates extreme ball lightning of the highly energetic violent kind, and proposes a theory of neutrinos and heavy neutrinos. [18]

Ball lightning theories are distinguished by having the energy either self-contained or with energy being supplied to the ball by an external source. In the latter case much longer life times are possible.

The types of theories vary widely. There are electrical discharge theories, spinning electric diplole theory, electro-static Leyden jar theories, nuclear theories, trapped microwave theories, fractal aerogel theories, magnetically-trapped plasma theories, vortex theories, metallic vapour theories, Rydberg matter theories, chemical combustion theories, black hole theories, antimatter theories, optical illusions (e.g. lightning after image on the retina theory etc).

Each of these theories is now described. These are the types of candidate theories but they need to be able to account for eyewitness accounts. No one theory has been widely accepted so there needs to be some debate within the scientific community as to the likely cause of ball lightning.

1. Spinning electric dipole theory. (Endean (1976) published this theory. He postulated that ball lightning could be described as an electric field vector spinning in the microwave frequency region.)
2. Electrostatic Leyden jar models. (Singer (1971) discusses this type of theory and suggested that the electrical recombination time would be too short for the ball lightning lifetimes often reported.)
3. Nuclear theories
4. Trapped microwave theories
5. Maser caviton theory
6. Fractal aerogel theories (Smirnov (1987) put forward a charged aerosol cluster theory.)
7. Magnetically trapped plasma theories
8. Vortex theories (Coleman (2006) described ball lightning as a vortex fireball or natural vortex burning a combustible fuel. Ball lightning under this theory is essentially a turbulent swirling flame inside a vortex.
9. Rydberg matter theories
10. Chemical combustion theories
11. Black hole theories
12. Anti-matter theories
13. Optical illusions.

Ball lightning has been connected to reports of several supernatural phenomena, ranging from will o' the wisps to UFOs. Some people believe the ball lightning phenomena are ghosts or spirits, or are related to poltergeists and spontaneous human combustion.^[3] References can be seen in the will o' the wisp and other spirits that take the guise of orbs of light. Some UFO skeptics have suggested that many apparent close encounters are actually observations of ball lightning. UFO enthusiasts report seeing ball lightning often at crop circle sites and believe them to be some kind of intelligence or come from some kind of intelligence while not denying that it is indeed ball lightning.

Another esoteric explanation that has been offered for ball lightning is that it is the passage of microscopic primordial black holes through the Earth's atmosphere. No such tiny black holes have ever been positively detected, and it is uncertain whether they would have the physical properties described by ball lightning if they did in fact exist and in great enough quantity to account for ball lightning reports. This explanation also would not account for their alleged co-occurrence with electrical storms. However, inspired by accounts of ball lightning that, amongst other physically verifiable effects, had ploughed a 90-metre trench across peat bogs in Ireland, Pace Vandevender, a plasma physicist who worked until his retirement on thermonuclear fusion at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, believes that no explanation other than a black hole with a mass of more than 20 tonnes could explain the displacement of more than 100 tonnes of peat. His colleagues at Sandia agreed that, crazy though the hypothesis seems, it was worthy of the attention of a national laboratory.^[26]

Among the ancients of Japanese mythology, there is a myth that ball lightning is the wrath of the thunder god, Raijin from Japanese mythology. In Basque mythology ball lightning were believed to be either main deity, Mari or Sugaar, travelling from one mountain to another. M. l'abbé de Tressan in, Mythology compared with history: or, the fables of the ancients elucidated from historical records,

...during a storm which endangered the ship Argo, fires were seen to play round the heads of the Tyndarides, and the instant after the storm ceased. From that time, those fires which frequently appear on the surface of the ocean were called the fire of Castor and Pollux. When two were seen at the same time, it announced the return of calm, when only one, it was the presage of a dreadful storm. This species of fire is frequently seen by sailors, and is a species of ignis fatuus. (page 417)

Some phenomena known from folklore, such as the will o' the wisp, may be related to ball lightning.

An early fictional reference to ball lightning appears in a children's book set in the 1800s by Laura Ingalls Wilder.^[27] The books are considered historical fiction, but the author always insisted they were descriptive of actual events in her life. In Wilder's description, three separate balls of lightning appear during a winter blizzard near a cast iron stove in the family's kitchen. They are described as appearing near the stovepipe, then rolling across the floor, only to disappear as the mother (Caroline Ingalls) chases them with a willow-branch broom.^[28]

Ball lightning also occurs in The Seven Crystal Balls, one of the books in The Adventures of Tintin series. In Stephen King's novella The Body, the narrator and his friends encounter this phenomenon traveling down railroad tracks just outside the fictional town of Castle Rock. A ball lightning named Skip makes a brief appearance as a character in Thomas Pynchon's novel Against the Day.

Fantasy fiction and games feature ball lightning as an attack spell cast by mage characters.^{[citation needed]}

The Canadian animated film Heavy Metal (1981) consists a green ball known as the Loc-Nar. The Loc-Nar is similair to a ball lightning, an artifact over which people are killing each other and is the sum of all evils. The Loc-Nar has got influence on society through time and space. The film also shows how the Loc-Nar follows a B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II. In real time, several reports has been made about sightings of foo fighters following bombers and airplanes during the World War II.

• St. Elmo's fire
• Naga fireballs
• Hessdalen light
• Spooklight
• Will o' the wisp
• Foo fighter
• Red sprite

• Barry, James Dale (1980). Ball Lightning and Bead Lightning. New York: Plenum Press. 
• Cade, Cecil Maxwell; Delphine Davis (1969). The Taming of the Thunderbolts. New York: Abelard-Schuman Limited. 
• Coleman, Peter F. (2004). Great Balls of Fire—A Unified Theory of Ball Lightning, UFOs, Tunguska and other Anomalous Lights. Christchurch, NZ: Fireshine Press. 
• Coleman, P.F. 2006, J.Sci.Expl., Vol. 20, No.2, 215–238.
• Endean, V.G.,1976, Nature, 263,753,754.
• Golde, R. H. (1977). Lightning. Bristol: John Wright and Sons Limited. 
• Golde, R. H. (1977). Lightning Volume 1 Physics of Lightning. Academic Press. 
• Singer, Stanley (1971). The Nature of Ball Lightning. New York: Plenum Press. 
• Smirnov, 1987, Physics Reports, (Review Section of Physical Letters,152, No. 4, 177–226.
• Stenhoff, Mark (1999). Ball Lightning, An Unsolved Problem in Atmospheric Physics. New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. 
• Uman, Martin A. (1984). Lightning. Dover Publications. 
• Viemeister, Peter E. (1972). The Lightning Book. Cambridge: MIT Press. 

• Meshcheryakov, Oleg. Ball Lightning–Aerosol Electrochemical Power Source or A Cloud of Batteries. Nanoscale Res Lett (2007) 2:319–330.
• Aspden, Harold. The Thunderball - an Electrostatic Phenomenon. Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. No. 66: Session VI, Electrostatics 1983, Oxford, pp. 179–184, 1983.
• Beaty, Bill. Ball Lightning Page. and Eyewitness reports. — Various articles, experiments, and information on Ball lightning
• Bergström, Arne. Electrodynamic confinement -- a new field of science and technology?. Scientor Research & Development. — the secret of ball lightning and a new field of science and technology
• Darling, David. Ball lightning. The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, and Spaceflight..
• Corum, Kenneth L.; James F. Corum. Tesla's production of electric fireballs. Corum & Associates, Inc..
• Hochwald, Hans. 'Ball Lightning' produced using a high voltage arc and carbon. — Alternative "toaster" Microwave Experiments
• Shelton, J. D. (2004-01-13). Eddy Current Model of Ball Lightning.
• Talbot, Michel T.. Ball Lightning: Rare Atmospheric Phenomena (RAP).
• Does ball lightning really exist?. Straight Dope.
• Ball Lightning as a Stable Toroid (pdf).
• The Physical Theory of Ball Lightning (pdf).
• Skeptic's Dictionary information on ball lightning, with further links.
• 1999 conference: [19]
• 2007 Brazil experiments: [20]
• Russian wiki for thunderball ( "Шаровая молния" )[21]