Comments on: Is Ball Lightning Just a Hallucination Caused by Regular Lightning?

By: Orbdocumentation

Orbdocumentation — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:13:32 +0000

I live in a house that always has ball lightening. weird. weird?I actually have many photos and videos of it. at any given time I can walk in, find a ball or streaks in the room and record them. anyone else have this?

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:39:48 +0000

On July 8, 2010, my husband and I had just finished checking into a hotel in Dayton. We were standing under the front overhang when a torrential amount of rain began to fall. I was looking outward and he was 8 feet away, turned toward me when there was an ear-splitting CURRR-ACKKKK! and a large (perhaps 1-2-feet), pure white ball of light appeared behind him. It seemed to simply hover about 6-9 feet off the ground. He began to turn at the sound and with a further CRACK! the ball exploded sideways. My husband felt the explosion raking his chest from one side to the other while I only felt a push, like being hit with a shot of air. The clerks inside the hotel watched this too and thought we had been hit. I had never heard about “ball lightning” before, but I immediately knew that’s what it had to be — a ball of lightning. Either that, or someone was teleporting into the area!! We’re both journalists and that night my husband wrote down all we could remember about the event.

By: David

David — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:52:07 +0000

Ball lightning doesn’t only occur where there is a thunderstorm.
In 1927 when my mother was 11 years old, on a fine day, a glowing ball about six inches in diameter floated over the fields behind the house, knocked over my grandfather who was washing his car, floated over the six foot high garden wall and approached the kitchen window which shattered, showering my grandmother and the cooking stove with glass. It then rose over the house and descended one of the chimneys and exploded in the chimney, bursting the chimney and bringing down the bedroom ceiling. The explosion was so powerful it burst my mothers eardrums and she ran out of the house and down the street to a friends crying ‘it hit our house’. Afterwards she had to use a hearing aid the size of 3 or 4 paperbacks and was still unable to hear what people said.
Several things may be important.
1. the ball approached my grandfather’s car – a metal object – conductive.
2. The wash-leather my grandfather was using disappeared.
3. the stove was metal – conductive.
4. My grandmother said that afterwards the iron frying pan she was using was never the same and no matter what she did food always burned onto the pan.
5. the ball descended the chimney which had a coating of carbon – soot – conductive.

The ball was probably heavier than air and floating on an intense electrostatic field which would be drained faster in the presence of iron or other conductive material.

By: Larry Gillihan

Larry Gillihan — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:51:57 +0000

Ball lightning is not a hallucination. Because they’ve created hallucinations in the laboratory means nothing except that they can create hallucinations in the laboratory. It has been photographed, and you can’t take pictures of hallucinations.

By: Ellen McKeon

Ellen McKeon — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:06:33 +0000

I’ve personally observed “ball” lightning. Driving south on I57 through Kankakee county, during a bad thunderstorm, I watched a ball of lightning rolling south to north along side the interstate. I watched it approach the car, pass and then continue to travel north. As I was driving I couldn’t watch it too long, but it was very large (bigger than my car). I was not drunk or otherwise drug compromised. Unfortunately the only other witness in my vehicle was my dog, and he never told one way or the other. I honestly do NOT believe this was an hallucination.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:59:21 +0000

How can these hallucinations be responsible for the substantial photographic and other forensic evidence of long-lived ball lightning events?

By: awesomeman

awesomeman — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:55:09 +0000

lol, one more thing to add to the list of things that give you a false high

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:57:40 +0000

Would the added protection of the tin foil hat or the additional resemblance to a lightning rod would be the driving characteristic of the system, though?

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:12:28 +0000

Sounds like a reason to wear the proverbial tinfoil hat!