An incident from the life of Nicholas II: The last Russian emperor, in the presence of his grandfather Alexander II, observed a phenomenon that he called a “ball of fire.” He recalled: “When my parents were away, my grandfather and I performed the rite of the all-night vigil in the Alexandria Church. There was a strong thunderstorm; it seemed that lightning, following one after another, was ready to shake the church and the whole world right to its foundations. Suddenly it became completely dark when a gust of wind opened the church gates and extinguished the candles in front of the iconostasis. There was thunder louder than usual, and I saw a fireball fly into the window. The ball (it was lightning) circled on the floor, flew past the candelabra and flew out through the door into the park. My heart froze with fear and I looked at my grandfather - but his face was completely calm. He crossed himself with the same calmness as when the lightning flew past us. Then I thought that being scared as I was was inappropriate and unmanly. After the ball flew out, I looked at my grandfather again. He smiled slightly and nodded at me. My fear disappeared and I was never afraid of a thunderstorm again.” An incident from the life of Aleister Crowley: Famous British occultist Aleister Crowley spoke of a phenomenon he called "electricity in the form of a ball" that he observed in 1916 during a thunderstorm at Lake Pasconi in New Hampshire. He had taken refuge in a small country house when “in silent amazement he noticed that a dazzling ball of electric fire, three to six inches in diameter, stopped at a distance of six inches from his right knee. I looked at it, and it suddenly exploded with a sharp sound that could not be confused with what was raging outside: the noise of a thunderstorm, the sound of hail, or streams of water and the cracking of wood. My hand was closest to the ball and she only felt a weak blow.” Case in India: On April 30, 1877, ball lightning flew into the central temple of Amristar (India), Harmandir Sahib. Several people observed the phenomenon until the ball left the room through the front door. This incident is depicted on the Darshani Deodi gate. Case in Colorado: On November 22, 1894, ball lightning appeared in the city of Golden, Colorado (USA), which lasted for an unexpectedly long time. As the Golden Globe newspaper reported: “On Monday night a beautiful and strange phenomenon could be observed in the city. A strong wind rose and the air seemed to be filled with electricity. Those who happened to be near the school that night could see fireballs flying one after another for half an hour. This building houses the electric dynamos of what is perhaps the finest plant in the entire state. Probably last Monday a delegation arrived at the dynamos straight from the clouds. Definitely, this visit was a great success, as was the frantic game they started together.” Case in Australia: In July 1907, on the west coast of Australia, the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste was struck by ball lightning. Lighthouse keeper Patrick Baird lost consciousness, and the phenomenon was described by his daughter Ethel. Ball lightning on submarines: During World War II, submariners repeatedly and consistently reported small ball lightning occurring in the confined space of a submarine. They appeared when the battery was turned on, off, or incorrectly connected, or when high-inductance electric motors were disconnected or incorrectly connected. Attempts to reproduce the phenomenon using a submarine's spare battery ended in failure and explosion. Case in Sweden: In 1944, on August 6, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, ball lightning passed through a closed window, leaving behind a round hole about 5 cm in diameter. The phenomenon was observed not only by local residents - the lightning tracking system of Uppsala University, created at the Department of Electricity and Lightning Studies, was triggered. Case on the Danube: In 1954, physicist Tar Domokos observed lightning in a severe thunderstorm. He described what he saw in sufficient detail. “It happened on Margaret Island on the Danube. It was somewhere around 25–27°C, the sky quickly became cloudy and a strong thunderstorm began. There was nothing nearby where one could hide; nearby there was only a lonely bush, which was bent by the wind towards the ground. Suddenly, about 50 meters from me, lightning struck the ground. It was a very bright channel 25–30 cm in diameter, it was exactly perpendicular to the surface of the earth. It was dark for about two seconds, and then at a height of 1.2 m a beautiful ball with a diameter of 30–40 cm appeared. It appeared at a distance of 2.5 m from the place of the lightning strike, so that this point of impact was right in the middle between the ball and bush. The ball sparkled like a small sun and rotated counterclockwise. The axis of rotation was parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the line “bush - place of impact - ball”. The ball also had one or two red swirls, but not so bright, they disappeared after a split second (~0.3 s). The ball itself slowly moved horizontally along the same line from the bush. Its colors were clear and its brightness was consistent across its entire surface. There was no more rotation, the movement occurred at a constant height and at a constant speed. I didn't notice any more changes in size. About three more seconds passed - the ball suddenly disappeared, and completely silently, although due to the noise of the thunderstorm I might not have heard it.” Case in Kazan: In 2008, in Kazan, ball lightning flew into the window of a trolleybus. The conductor, using a ticket checking machine, threw her to the end of the cabin, where there were no passengers, and a few seconds later an explosion occurred. There were 20 people in the cabin, no one was injured. The trolleybus was out of order, the ticket checking machine got hot, turned white, but remained in working order.

Ball lightning - an unsolved mystery of nature

The village in which several generations of my ancestors lived is called Berezovka and is located 150 kilometers from the metropolis. Today there is no one left there, and we rarely go there. The garden is overgrown, the house, once strong, has become askew. The house is quite small: a closet, a kitchen and a living room, as the locals call it. In the summer of 2005, I was lying in the hall on an old bed with a bent mesh. My wife was preparing a salad in the kitchen, and I was enjoying the sound of rain and thunder. The door to the closet was open, the window in the hall too, and after another clap of thunder from the kitchen, lightning flashed through the hall and flew out the window. It was exactly as they depict in the pictures: blue, broken in several places. It happened quickly, I didn’t even have time to open my mouth in surprise. But after her, ball lightning immediately flew into the room. She stopped exactly in the middle of the room. I watched her with all my eyes, not the least bit frightened, it was so unusual. The lightning looked like a red soap bubble, only filled inside with some kind of trembling substance. I saw her for two seconds, after which the fireball, without saying goodbye, flew out the window after the first guest. It seemed to me that the second one was pursuing the first one. Fear came later. So I became one of the few who managed to encounter an unusual and mysterious phenomenon - ball lightning!

Just a little history

Where, who and when first saw and recorded ball lightning on paper or drawing is unknown. The discoverers of the heavenly miracle are many people, scientists and countries.

A majestic natural phenomenon - ball lightning

There were written references to mysterious glowing balls in Roman chronicles from 106 BC. There, ball lightning was compared to fiery birds that carried hot coals in their beaks.

There are many descriptions of celestial miraculous balls in medieval European sources (Portuguese, French, English).

A documented incident occurred in England in the county of Devon in 1638, when a fiery hooligan injured 60 people, killed four and caused other mischief.

The Frenchman F. Arago described thirty cases of the appearance of ball lightning and eyewitness observations of them.

Eyewitness accounts

“A bright ball pulled out of the socket. He separated from her and, like a soap bubble, floated across the room, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. He froze briefly over the desk and was sucked back into the socket, but a different one. At that moment I was sure that I was hallucinating."

But in general, science somehow showed little interest in this unusual celestial phenomenon until the mid-twentieth century, when it was taken seriously.

The fact is that then work in the field intensified, and many famous scientists, for example, Pyotr Kapitsa, had a hand in the study of ball lightning.

One of the forms of matter is plasma

Today, there is great interest in ball lightning among scientists. Conferences, seminars, symposiums are held on this topic, and candidate and doctoral dissertations are defended.

Unfortunately, despite the huge amount of information, descriptions and observations, ball lightning continues to remain a mystery and leads among the mysterious, incomprehensible and dangerous natural phenomena.

What kind of natural phenomenon is ball lightning? Hypotheses

Believe it or not, there are almost half a thousand hypotheses and theories about the nature of ball lightning. It is not possible to present even a small part of them in a short note; we will limit ourselves to the most popular and exotic ones.

• The first hypothesis that has reached us about the origin of the fiery miracle was put forward by Peter van Muschenbroek. He suggested that ball lightning is swamp gases condensed in the upper layers of the atmosphere. They ignite when they go lower.

• Russian scientist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa believed that ball lightning is a discharge that occurs without electrodes, which is caused by ultra-high-frequency waves of unknown origin that exist between clouds and the ground.
• There is a theory that ball lightning consists of balls of burning silicon that are formed when lightning strikes the ground.
• Many famous physicists of the 19th century, such as Faraday and Kelvin, considered lightning to be an optical illusion.
• According to Turner's theory, it appears due to thermochemical reactions that occur in water vapor under a strong electric field.
• It is believed that ball lightning is microscopic nuclear explosions or miniature black holes.
• Some researchers consider them alive and give lightning intelligence.
• Others call the guests from the sky instruments created by an unknown mind to explore our world.

• A group of ufologists agree that fire ladies are aliens from a parallel world, where life proceeds according to different physical laws. Having collected information, they dive into their world, and, having dumped it, appear again in ours, but in a different place. During thunderstorms, a surge of energy occurs, and then portals to other worlds open.

Ball lightning shape

Based on the name “Ball”, we can confidently say that the main form is a ball, a fireball.

In fact, the electric lady loves, like a real lady, to often change clothes and can take on the most strange and unusual form. Ball lightning has been seen in the form of a bright ribbon, a drop, a mushroom, a jellyfish, a long elongated egg, a pancake, and a rugby ball. It is not known what her real appearance is; most likely, she does not have one.

Eyewitness accounts

“A bright red ball with a diameter of twenty centimeters slowly floated out of the hallway. Then he quickly took the form of a long whip and completely silently slipped out of the room through the keyhole. There were no traces left on the door.”

Ball lightning color

The guest from heaven is a real fashionista; she can change her color instantly, without resorting to long and tedious makeup. Her makeup bag contains a whole range of colors.

Ball lightning comes in all colors - from black to white. There is no point in listing them, here is literally the whole gamut. Most often, lightning is dressed up in orange, white and green. The tail is colored according to the mood. It also changes the color of its translucent shell.

Black ball lightning

A matte black heavenly wanderer regularly appears from underground in the Black Glade. This is a place in a small town near Pskov. It began to be observed in these places a long time ago, after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite in 1908. She appeared in the same place, which later led scientists to the idea of ​​recording her appearance and measuring the temperature using instruments. Alas, the efforts were in vain; time after time, researchers found the devices in a molten state.

Ball lightning temperature

It is unlikely that anyone will tell you the exact temperature of the plasma beauty. Most often, the temperature scale jumps from 100 to 1000 degrees. At a thousand (slightly higher) the steel is already melting. Some scientists claim that the temperature of ball lightning reaches three million degrees. The number is incredible!

Only one thing can be said with certainty: cold ball lightning does not exist, and negative temperatures are not mentioned anywhere. But explosions upon contact with any objects are often remembered. There are also numerous cases of fires and ignitions of objects that were inappropriately placed in the path of the fireball.

Lifetime of ball lightning

In the laboratory, scientists several times obtained ball lightning or its likeness. She lived for a few seconds. The time of its existence in nature is very difficult to determine, because no one has observed ball lightning from the moment of its birth to death. In addition, it is unlikely that anyone, faced with this phenomenon, will time the time on a watch, so observers’ feelings are subjective.

However, by comparing facts and eyewitness accounts, scientists have come to the conclusion that the life of most ball lightning is short-lived: from 7 to 40 seconds. Although there are references to hours and even days of observation of this fiery object. We don't know how reliable they are.

Eyewitness accounts

“The thunderstorm was terrible, after another lightning bolt a huge fireball began to descend into the room from the ceiling. I, not remembering myself, jumped out into the closet and slammed the door. I sat there for a long time. When the storm ended, she carefully opened the door. It smelled of burning, the old clock hanging on the wall had turned into a molten, shapeless lump. The rest was in order."

Death of ball lightning

The fire witch often arranges her death with pomp. Its death is accompanied by explosions when colliding with objects or buildings, which leads to severe fires. There are references to animals, people, and even water from lakes and swamps evaporating during an explosion. And it happens that ball lightning explodes in enclosed spaces, apartments, but without causing harm to either the environment or people! Sometimes it just evaporates, disappears quietly and unnoticed.

Secrets of ball lightning

The fiery lady appears most often during a thunderstorm, but sometimes she goes out for a walk in sunny weather.

She can't stand companions, so... It can swim out from behind a tree or pole, descend from a cloud, or suddenly appear around a corner. There are no walls or barriers for her. Ball lightning easily penetrates closed spaces and sometimes crawls out of sockets. There is a known case when she flew into the cockpit.

The behavior of ball lightning is completely unpredictable. The flight speed and trajectory do not correspond to any calculations. Sometimes it seems that lightning is endowed with intelligence and instincts. She can fly around the trees, houses, lamp posts that appear in front of her, or she can, as if going blind, crash into them.

Uninvited guests often fly into houses through chimneys, open windows and vents. In several cases, ball lightning, trying to penetrate the apartment, melted the glass, leaving behind a perfect round hole.

Eyewitnesses said that after the explosion, the smell of sulfur remained in the air for a long time, as if the fiery guest was a messenger of hell.

It is not clear what influences the lightning flight path. These are not people or animals, since she can fly around them, she can swim against him.

The speed can instantly change from a few centimeters to hundreds of meters per second.

Eyewitness accounts

“I watched the thunderstorm from the window of my apartment on the first floor. Suddenly a red ball bounced along the asphalt path. I thought that the children had forgotten him. But suddenly it collided with a bench and exploded with a loud noise. I went blind for a few minutes. The shop caught fire."

If we are talking about the thermal properties of ball lightning, then everything here is generally unclear. Sometimes, in heavy pouring rain, she can burn down a huge wet oak tree, and sometimes, waking up to a person, she leaves no traces on him.

But this does not always happen; more often, an encounter with a fiery monster threatens a person with injury, burns and death. We will talk further about how to avoid this.

VIDEO: 10 facts about ball lightning

How to behave

If, God forbid, during a thunderstorm you encounter ball lightning in an open area! In this extreme situation, adhere to the following rules of behavior.

• Walk away slowly and without sudden movements.
• Under no circumstances try to run or turn your back to the fireball.
• If you notice that ball lightning is heading towards you, freeze, hold your breath, try not to move. Most likely, after a few seconds she will lose interest in you and leave.
• Do not try to throw any objects at it; if you collide with them, an explosion may occur.

Ball lightning: how to escape if it appears in the house?

For an unprepared person, the appearance of ball lightning in an apartment will be a shock; no one is prepared for this. However, try not to panic, because panic can lead to a fatal mistake, because lightning reacts to air movement. Therefore, the most universal advice is to stand quietly, not move, and breathe less often.

1. What to do if ball lightning is near your face? Blow lightly on it, it is likely that the ball will fly off to the side.
2. Do not touch metal objects.
3. Don’t try to run, don’t make sudden movements, freeze.
4. If there is an entrance to another room nearby, try to slowly make your way there.
5. Move smoothly and slowly, and most importantly, do not turn your back on the ball lightning.
6. Do not try to drive it away from you with your hands or objects, you risk provoking the lightning to explode.
7. In this case, serious trouble awaits you. Possible burns, injury, loss of consciousness, heart spasms.

How to help the victim

Electrocution from a ball lightning discharge can lead to very serious consequences. If you are faced with such a situation and see that a person is injured, urgently move him to another place. There is no longer any charge in his body, so don’t be afraid. Lay him on the floor and call an ambulance. If this occurs, give the victim artificial respiration. If the injuries are not severe and the person is conscious, before calling an ambulance, give him a couple of analgin tablets, put a wet towel on his head and drip soothing drops.

How to protect yourself

• During a thunderstorm, people often behave carelessly, unaware of the real danger that threatens them. Most often, people get struck by lightning in nature.
• How to protect yourself from a fireball in the forest? Don't stand under a lonely tree. It is better to hide in the undergrowth or low grove. Lightning rarely strikes birches and conifers.
• Get rid of metal objects. Throw away your gun, umbrella, fishing rod, shovel, etc. Then you'll pick it up.
• Don't lie down on the ground, don't bury yourself in a haystack, just squat down to wait out the storm.
• If you find yourself in a car during a thunderstorm, stop, turn off the engine, and do not touch metal objects. Before this, drive away from tall trees to the side of the road and lower the antenna.
• How to behave in the house and should you worry if you are under what you think is a safe roof? Alas, a lightning rod will not help you in the event of ball lightning.
• An even more dangerous situation is if a thunderstorm finds you in the steppe. Squat down, you cannot rise above the landscape. You can hide in a ditch if there is one nearby, but if the ditch fills with water, leave it immediately.
• If you are on the water, in a boat, do not get up. Row slowly, smoothly towards the shore. Once you've landed, move away from the water.
• Remove all metal jewelry and turn off your mobile phone. His call can attract a fireball.
• If you are in a country house, close the chimney and windows. Although glass is not always a barrier to ball lightning. It can leak through it, as well as through sockets.
• If there is a thunderstorm outside the windows and you are in the apartment, do not take risks, turn off electrical appliances, and do not touch metal objects. Turn off all external antennas and do not make phone calls.

VIDEO: Where can you see ball lightning?

Story by student Sergei Ogorodnikov

Ball lightning and light bulbs are relatives on the mother's side

A funny incident was told by Sergei Ogorodnikov.

— On Saturday morning my father called me. His voice was excited. The parent paused every now and then, although he spoke slowly, in a whisper and pronounced the words as if he were afraid of something. The day before, he and his mother went to the garden for the weekend, bringing seedlings, some jars, old clothes, in short, the usual sadistic things.

Seryozha, urgently call the fire brigade and call the television, let them also come immediately.

His excitement was immediately transmitted to me. My father is a reasonable, calm man, he doesn’t drink, and it didn’t occur to me to suspect him of playing a prank; the fear was too clear in his voice.

Dad, what happened,” I was confused, “you can call everyone yourself.”

I only have one call, I don’t have a second one, otherwise she’ll notice us.

Who will notice? “I still didn’t understand anything.”

Lightning! Ball lightning flew into our house. It hangs right above the door, doesn’t move, so we can’t go out, and I won’t be able to call again, and I can’t speak loudly, it tracks vibrations in the air.

Where's mom? “I was already scared.”

She was lying on the sofa, sleeping, I forbade her to move, so she fell asleep.

While the firefighters are on their way to you, lightning can do a lot of damage, try climbing out the window.

It won’t work, two more of the same kind are waiting for us outside the window.

Two lightning bolts?!

Ball?

What others? Of course, ball ones. They probably found out that I broke a light bulb the day before yesterday.

What light bulb?

Regular - 100 watts.

What does the light bulb have to do with it?

Don't you know what they are?

Lightning and light bulbs.

This was already nonsense. I could still believe in ball lightning, but about the other two outside the window and about the fact that light bulbs and lightning are relatives! And why is mom calmly on the couch? Something was wrong. I tried to make my voice confident and said, “Wait, help will arrive soon.”

Thank God, my car was not in the garage, but under the window, this probably saved their lives. I drove like crazy, without fear, fortunately, no one slowed me down, and the road was surprisingly clear. Our site is not far from the city, so I arrived quickly. There was no lightning in front of the house. And yet, I opened the door with caution; it (another lucky coincidence) was not locked.

The mother was indeed lying on the sofa, her face was gray. Father was lying next to him on the floor and looked no better. The air in the room was heavy and thick, it seemed you could touch it with your hands. For some reason I thought it was carbon monoxide, although I have never been burned myself in my life.

The heating in our house is stove, wood. He immediately opened the door and locked it with a stool. One by one, I dragged my parents out into the fresh air. He immediately called an ambulance and explained that two people were dying from carbon monoxide. While the doctors were driving, I wet two towels and put them on their heads. I didn’t know what to do next.

Fortunately, the car arrived quickly, the parents were loaded onto a stretcher, and I went with them. Thanks to the doctors, everything ended well. Now we remember this incident. But my parent doesn’t remember about the bell, lightning and light bulbs.

We wondered for a long time why exactly such a fantasy came to the mind of a man who was one step away from death. Then my father remembered that shortly before the trip to the garden he watched a documentary about ball lightning, which made a strong impression on him. I think that if this were a film about the phenomenon of time, wormholes and black holes, then his besotted head would be attacked not by ball lightning, but from a parallel universe.

The first written mention of mysterious and mysterious fireballs can be found in the chronicles of 106 BC. BC: “Huge fiery birds appeared over Rome, carrying hot coals in their beaks, which, falling down, burned houses. The city was on fire...” Also, more than one description of ball lightning was discovered in Portugal and France in the Middle Ages, the phenomenon of which prompted alchemists to spend time looking for opportunities to dominate the spirits of fire.

Ball lightning is considered a special type of lightning, which is a luminous fireball floating through the air (sometimes shaped like a mushroom, drop or pear). Its size usually ranges from 10 to 20 cm, and it itself comes in blue, orange or white tones (although you can often see other colors, even black), the color is heterogeneous and often changes. People who have seen what ball lightning looks like say that inside it consists of small, stationary parts.

As for the temperature of the plasma ball, it has not yet been determined: although, according to scientists’ calculations, it should range from 100 to 1000 degrees Celsius, people who found themselves near the fireball did not feel the heat from it. If it explodes unexpectedly (although this does not always happen), all the liquid nearby evaporates, and the glass and metal melts.

A case was recorded when a plasma ball, once in a house, fell into a barrel containing sixteen liters of freshly brought well water. However, it did not explode, but boiled the water and disappeared. After the water finished boiling, it was hot for twenty minutes.

A fireball can exist for quite a long time, and when moving, it can suddenly change direction, and it can even hang in the air for several minutes, after which it abruptly moves away to the side at a speed of 8 to 10 m/s.

Ball lightning occurs mainly during a thunderstorm, but repeated cases of its appearance in sunny weather have also been recorded. It usually appears in a single copy (at least modern science has not recorded anything else), and often in the most unexpected way: it can descend from the clouds, appear in the air, or float out from behind a pillar or tree. It is not difficult for her to penetrate into a closed space: there are known cases of her appearing from sockets, televisions, and even in pilot cockpits.

Many cases of constant occurrence of ball lightning in the same place have been recorded. So, in a small town near Pskov there is a Devil's Glade, where black ball lightning periodically jumps out of the ground (it began to appear here after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite). Its constant occurrence in the same place gave scientists the opportunity to try to record this appearance using sensors, however, without success: they were all melted while ball lightning moved across the clearing.

Secrets of ball lightning

For a long time, scientists did not even admit the existence of such a phenomenon as ball lightning: information about its appearance was attributed mainly to either an optical illusion or hallucinations that affect the retina of the eye after a flash of ordinary lightning. Moreover, the evidence about what ball lightning looks like was largely inconsistent, and during its reproduction in laboratory conditions it was possible to obtain only short-term phenomena.

Everything changed after the beginning of the 19th century. physicist Francois Arago published a report with collected and systematized eyewitness accounts of the phenomenon of ball lightning. Although these data managed to convince many scientists of the existence of this amazing phenomenon, skeptics still remained. Moreover, the mysteries of ball lightning do not decrease over time, but only multiply.

First of all, the nature of the appearance of the amazing ball is unclear, since it appears not only in a thunderstorm, but also on a clear, fine day.

The composition of the substance is also unclear, which allows it to penetrate not only through door and window openings, but also through tiny cracks, and then again take on its original form without harming itself (physicists are currently unable to solve this phenomenon).

Some scientists, studying the phenomenon, have put forward the assumption that ball lightning is actually a gas, but in this case, the plasma ball, under the influence of internal heat, would have to fly up like a hot air balloon.

And the nature of the radiation itself is unclear: where does it come from - only from the surface of the lightning, or from its entire volume. Also, physicists cannot help but be faced with the question of where the energy disappears, what is inside the ball lightning: if it only went into radiation, the ball would not disappear in a few minutes, but would glow for a couple of hours.

Despite the huge number of theories, physicists still cannot give a scientifically sound explanation of this phenomenon. But, there are two opposing versions that have gained popularity in scientific circles.

Hypothesis No. 1

Dominic Arago not only systematized the data on the plasma ball, but also tried to explain the mystery of ball lightning. According to his version, ball lightning is a specific interaction of nitrogen with oxygen, during which energy is released that creates lightning.

Another physicist Frenkel supplemented this version with the theory that the plasma ball is a spherical vortex, consisting of dust particles with active gases that became so due to the resulting electrical discharge. For this reason, a vortex-ball may well exist for quite a long time. His version is supported by the fact that a plasma ball usually appears in dusty air after an electrical discharge, and leaves behind a small smoke with a specific odor.

Thus, this version suggests that all the energy of the plasma ball is inside it, which is why ball lightning can be considered an energy storage device.

Hypothesis No. 2

Academician Pyotr Kapitsa did not agree with this opinion, since he argued that for the continuous glow of lightning, additional energy was needed that would feed the ball from the outside. He put forward a version that the phenomenon of ball lightning is fueled by radio waves with a length of 35 to 70 cm, resulting from electromagnetic oscillations arising between thunderclouds and the earth's crust.

He explained the explosion of ball lightning by an unexpected stop in the energy supply, for example, a change in the frequency of electromagnetic oscillations, as a result of which rarefied air “collapses.”

Although his version was liked by many, the nature of ball lightning does not correspond to the version. At the moment, modern equipment has never recorded radio waves of the desired wavelength, which would appear as a result of atmospheric discharges. In addition, water is an almost insurmountable obstacle to radio waves, and therefore a plasma ball would not be able to heat water, as in the case of a barrel, much less boil it.

The hypothesis also casts doubt on the scale of the plasma ball explosion: it is not only capable of melting or smashing durable and strong objects into pieces, but also breaking thick logs, and its shock wave can overturn a tractor. At the same time, the ordinary “collapse” of rarefied air is not capable of performing all these tricks, and its effect is similar to a bursting balloon.

What to do if you encounter ball lightning

Whatever the reason for the appearance of an amazing plasma ball, it must be borne in mind that a collision with it is extremely dangerous, since if a ball filled with electricity touches a living creature, it may well kill, and if it explodes, it will destroy everything around.

When you see a fireball at home or on the street, the main thing is not to panic, not to make sudden movements and not to run: ball lightning is extremely sensitive to any air turbulence and may well follow it.

You need to slowly and calmly turn out of the way of the ball, trying to stay as far away from it as possible, but under no circumstances turn your back. If ball lightning is indoors, you need to go to the window and open the window: following the movement of air, the lightning will most likely fly out.

It is also strictly forbidden to throw anything into the plasma ball: this may well lead to an explosion, and then injuries, burns, and in some cases even cardiac arrest are inevitable. If it so happens that a person was unable to move away from the trajectory of the ball, and it hit him, causing loss of consciousness, the victim should be moved to a ventilated room, wrapped warmly, given artificial respiration and, of course, immediately call an ambulance.

Ball lightning

Ball lightning

Ball lightning- a luminous ball floating in the air, a uniquely rare natural phenomenon, a unified physical theory of the occurrence and course of which has not been presented to date. There are about 400 theories that explain the phenomenon, but none of them have received absolute recognition in the academic environment. In laboratory conditions, similar but short-term phenomena were obtained in several different ways, but the question of the unique nature of ball lightning remains open. At the end of the 20th century, not a single experimental stand had been created in which this natural phenomenon would be artificially reproduced in accordance with the descriptions of eyewitnesses of ball lightning.

It is widely believed that ball lightning is a phenomenon of electrical origin, of natural nature, that is, it is a special type of lightning that exists for a long time and has the shape of a ball capable of moving along an unpredictable trajectory, sometimes surprising to eyewitnesses.

Traditionally, the reliability of many eyewitness accounts of ball lightning remains in doubt, including:

• by the very fact of observing at least some phenomenon;
• the fact of observing ball lightning, and not some other phenomenon;
• individual details given in the eyewitness account of the phenomenon.

Doubts about the reliability of many evidence complicate the study of the phenomenon, and also create the ground for the appearance of various speculative and sensational materials allegedly related to this phenomenon.

Ball lightning usually appears in thundery, stormy weather; often, but not necessarily, along with regular lightning. But there is plenty of evidence of its observation in sunny weather. Most often, it seems to “emerge” from the conductor or is generated by ordinary lightning, sometimes it descends from the clouds, in rare cases it suddenly appears in the air or, as eyewitnesses report, can come out of some object (tree, pillar).

Due to the fact that the appearance of ball lightning as a natural phenomenon occurs rarely, and attempts to artificially reproduce it on the scale of a natural phenomenon fail, the main material for studying ball lightning is the testimony of random eyewitnesses unprepared for observations, however, some evidence describes in great detail ball lightning and the reliability of these materials is beyond doubt. In some cases, contemporary eyewitnesses took photographs and/or video of the phenomenon.

Observation history

Stories about observations of ball lightning have been known for two thousand years. In the first half of the 19th century, the French physicist, astronomer and naturalist F. Arago, perhaps the first in the history of civilization, collected and systematized all the evidence known at that time for the appearance of ball lightning. His book described 30 cases of observation of ball lightning. The statistics are small, and it is not surprising that many 19th-century physicists, including Kelvin and Faraday, during their lifetime were inclined to believe that this was either an optical illusion or a phenomenon of a completely different, non-electric nature. However, the number of cases, the detail of the description of the phenomenon and the reliability of the evidence increased, which attracted the attention of scientists, including prominent physicists.

At the end of the 1940s. P. L. Kapitsa worked on an explanation of ball lightning.

A great contribution to the work on observing and describing ball lightning was made by the Soviet scientist I. P. Stakhanov, who, together with S. L. Lopatnikov, wrote in the journal “Knowledge is Power” in the 1970s. published an article about ball lightning. At the end of this article he attached a questionnaire and asked eyewitnesses to send him their detailed memories of this phenomenon. As a result, he accumulated extensive statistics - more than a thousand cases, which allowed him to generalize some of the properties of ball lightning and propose his own theoretical model of ball lightning.

Historical evidence

Thunderstorm at Widecombe Moor
On October 21, 1638, lightning appeared during a thunderstorm in the church of the village of Widecombe Moor, Devon County, England. Eyewitnesses said that a huge fireball about two and a half meters in diameter flew into the church. He knocked several large stones and wooden beams out of the church walls. The ball then allegedly broke benches, broke many windows and filled the room with thick, dark smoke that smelled of sulfur. Then it split in half; the first ball flew out, breaking another window, the second disappeared somewhere inside the church. As a result, 4 people were killed and 60 were injured. The phenomenon was explained by the “coming of the devil”, or “hell fire” and was blamed on two people who dared to play cards during the sermon.

Incident on board the Catherine and Marie
In December 1726, some British newspapers published an excerpt from a letter from one John Howell, who was on board the sloop Catherine and Marie. “On August 29, we were sailing along the bay off the coast of Florida, when suddenly a ball flew out of part of the ship. He smashed our mast into 10,000 pieces, if that were even possible, and smashed the beam to pieces. The ball also tore out three boards from the side plating, from the underwater plating, and three from the deck; killed one man, wounded the hand of another, and if it had not been for the heavy rains, our sails would have simply been destroyed by fire.”

Incident on board the Montag
The impressive size of lightning was reported from the words of the ship's doctor Gregory in 1749. Admiral Chambers, aboard the Montag, went on deck around noon to measure the ship's coordinates. He spotted a fairly large blue fireball about three miles away. The order was immediately given to lower the topsails, but the balloon was moving very quickly, and before the course could be changed, it took off almost vertically, and being not more than forty or fifty yards above the rig, disappeared with a powerful explosion, which is described as the simultaneous discharge of a thousand guns. The top of the mainmast was destroyed. Five people were knocked down, one of them received multiple bruises. The ball left behind a strong smell of sulfur; Before the explosion, its size reached the size of a millstone.

Death of Georg Richmann
In 1753, Georg Richmann, a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, died from a strike by ball lightning. He invented a device for studying atmospheric electricity, so when at the next meeting he heard that a thunderstorm was approaching, he urgently went home with an engraver to capture the phenomenon. During the experiment, a bluish-orange ball flew out of the device and hit the scientist directly in the forehead. There was a deafening roar, similar to the shot of a gun. Richman fell dead, and the engraver was stunned and knocked down. He later described what happened. A small dark crimson spot remained on the scientist’s forehead, his clothes were singed, his shoes were torn. The door frames were shattered into splinters, and the door itself was blown off its hinges. Later, M.V. Lomonosov personally inspected the scene of the incident.

The case of the USS Warren Hastings
One British publication reported that in 1809 the ship Warren Hastings was “attacked by three fireballs” during a storm. The crew saw one of them go down and kill a man on the deck. The one who decided to take the body was hit by the second ball; he was knocked off his feet and had minor burns on his body. The third ball killed another person. The crew noted that after the incident there was a disgusting smell of sulfur hanging over the deck.

Remarque in literature of 1864
In the 1864 edition of A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer discusses "ball lightning." In his description, lightning appears as a slow-moving fireball of explosive gas that sometimes descends to the ground and moves along its surface. It is also noted that the balls can split into smaller balls and explode “like a cannon shot.”

Description in the book “Lightning and Glow” by Wilfried de Fonvielle
The book by the French author reports about 150 encounters with ball lightning: “Apparently, ball lightning is strongly attracted by metal objects, so they often end up near balcony railings, water pipes and gas pipes. They do not have a specific color, their shade can be different, for example in Köthen in the Duchy of Anhalt the lightning was green. M. Colon, deputy chairman of the Paris Geological Society, saw the ball slowly descend along the bark of a tree. After touching the surface of the ground, it jumped and disappeared without an explosion. On September 10, 1845, in the Corretse Valley, lightning flew into the kitchen of one of the houses in the village of Salagnac. The ball rolled through the entire room without causing any damage to the people there. Having reached the barn adjacent to the kitchen, it suddenly exploded and killed a pig accidentally locked there. The animal was not familiar with the wonders of thunder and lightning, so it dared to smell in the most obscene and inappropriate way. Lightning does not move very quickly: some have even seen them stop, but this makes the balls cause no less destruction. The lightning that flew into the church in the city of Stralsund, during the explosion, threw out several small balls, which also exploded like artillery shells.”

An incident from the life of Nicholas II
The last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, in the presence of his grandfather Alexander II, observed a phenomenon that he called a “ball of fire.” He recalled: “When my parents were away, my grandfather and I performed the rite of the all-night vigil in the Alexandria Church. There was a strong thunderstorm; it seemed that lightning, following one after another, was ready to shake the church and the whole world right to its foundations. Suddenly it became completely dark when a gust of wind opened the church gates and extinguished the candles in front of the iconostasis. There was thunder louder than usual, and I saw a fireball fly into the window. The ball (it was lightning) circled on the floor, flew past the candelabra and flew out through the door into the park. My heart froze with fear and I looked at my grandfather - but his face was completely calm. He crossed himself with the same calmness as when the lightning flew past us. Then I thought that being scared like I was was inappropriate and unmanly... After the ball flew out, I looked at my grandfather again. He smiled slightly and nodded at me. My fear disappeared and I was never afraid of a thunderstorm again.”

An incident from the life of Aleister Crowley
The famous British occultist Aleister Crowley spoke of a phenomenon he called "electricity in the form of a ball" which he observed in 1916 during a thunderstorm at Lake Pasconi in New Hampshire. He had taken refuge in a small country house when, “in silent amazement, I noticed that a dazzling ball of electric fire, three to six inches in diameter, stopped at a distance of six inches from my right knee. I looked at it, and it suddenly exploded with a sharp sound that could not be confused with what was raging outside: the noise of a thunderstorm, the sound of hail, or streams of water and the cracking of wood. My hand was closest to the ball and she only felt a weak blow.”

Other evidence

During World War II, submariners repeatedly and consistently reported small ball lightning occurring in the confined space of a submarine. They appeared when the battery was turned on, turned off, or incorrectly turned on, or when high-inductance electric motors were disconnected or incorrectly connected. Attempts to reproduce the phenomenon using a submarine's spare battery ended in failure and explosion.

On August 6, 1944, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, ball lightning passed through a closed window, leaving behind a round hole about 5 cm in diameter. The phenomenon was not only observed by local residents, but also the lightning tracking system of Uppsala University, which is located in the department of electricity and lightning, also triggered.

In 1954, physicist Domokos Tar observed lightning in a severe thunderstorm. He described what he saw in sufficient detail. “It happened on Margaret Island on the Danube. It was somewhere around 25-27 degrees Celsius, the sky quickly became cloudy and a strong thunderstorm began. There was nothing nearby where one could hide, there was only a lonely bush nearby, which was bent by the wind towards the ground. Suddenly, about 50 meters from me, lightning struck the ground. It was a very bright channel 25-30 cm in diameter, it was exactly perpendicular to the surface of the earth. It was dark for about two seconds, and then at a height of 1.2 m a beautiful ball with a diameter of 30-40 cm appeared. It appeared at a distance of 2.5 m from the place of the lightning strike, so this point of impact was right in the middle between the ball and bush. The ball sparkled like a small sun and rotated counterclockwise. The axis of rotation was parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the line “bush-place of impact-ball”. The ball also had one or two red swirls, but not so bright, they disappeared after a split second (~0.3 s). The ball itself slowly moved horizontally along the same line from the bush. Its colors were clear, and the brightness itself was constant over the entire surface. There was no more rotation, the movement occurred at a constant height and at a constant speed. I didn't notice any more changes in size. About three more seconds passed - the ball suddenly disappeared, and completely silently, although due to the noise of the thunderstorm I might not have heard it.” The author himself suggests that the temperature difference inside and outside the channel of ordinary lightning, with the help of a gust of wind, formed a kind of vortex ring, from which the observed ball lightning was then formed.

On July 10, 2011, in the Czech city of Liberec, ball lightning appeared in the control building of the city emergency services. A ball with a two-meter tail jumped up to the ceiling directly from the window, fell to the floor, jumped up to the ceiling again, flew 2-3 meters, and then fell to the floor and disappeared. This frightened the employees, who smelled burning wiring and believed that a fire had started. All computers froze (but did not break), communications equipment was out of order overnight until it was repaired. In addition, one monitor was destroyed.

On August 4, 2012, ball lightning frightened a villager in the Pruzhany district of the Brest region. As the newspaper “Rayonnaya Budni” reports, ball lightning flew into the house during a thunderstorm. Moreover, as the owner of the house, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ostapuk, told the publication, the windows and doors in the house were closed and the woman could not understand how the fireball entered the room. Fortunately, the woman realized that she shouldn’t make any sudden movements, and just sat there, watching the lightning. Ball lightning flew over her head and discharged into the electrical wiring on the wall. As a result of the unusual natural phenomenon, no one was injured, only the interior decoration of the room was damaged, the publication reports.

Artificial reproduction of the phenomenon

Review of approaches for artificially reproducing ball lightning

Since the appearance of ball lightning can be traced to a clear connection with other manifestations of atmospheric electricity (for example, ordinary lightning), most experiments were carried out according to the following scheme: a gas discharge was created (and the glow of a gas discharge is a well-known thing), and then conditions were sought when the luminous discharge could would exist in the form of a spherical body. But researchers experience only short-term gas discharges of a spherical shape, lasting a maximum of a few seconds, which does not correspond to eyewitness accounts of natural ball lightning.

List of claims about artificial reproduction of ball lightning

Several claims have been made about producing ball lightning in laboratories, but these claims have generally been met with skepticism in the academic community. The question remains open: “Are the phenomena observed in laboratory conditions really identical to the natural phenomenon of ball lightning?”

• The first detailed studies of a luminous electrodeless discharge were carried out only in 1942 by the Soviet electrical engineer Babat: he managed to obtain a spherical gas discharge inside a low-pressure chamber for a few seconds.

• Kapitsa was able to obtain a spherical gas discharge at atmospheric pressure in a helium environment. Additions of various organic compounds changed the brightness and color of the glow.

Theoretical explanations of the phenomenon

In our age, when physicists know what happened in the first seconds of the existence of the Universe, and what is happening in yet undiscovered black holes, we still have to admit with surprise that the main elements of antiquity - air and water - still remain a mystery to us.

I.P.Stakhanov

Most theories agree that the cause of the formation of any ball lightning is associated with the passage of gases through an area with a large difference in electrical potential, which causes the ionization of these gases and their compression in the form of a ball.

Experimental testing of existing theories is difficult. Even if we consider only assumptions published in serious scientific journals, the number of theoretical models that describe the phenomenon and answer these questions with varying degrees of success is quite large.

Classification of theories

• Based on the location of the energy source that supports the existence of ball lightning, theories can be divided into two classes: those suggesting an external source, and theories that believe that the source is located inside ball lightning.

Review of existing theories

• The next theory suggests that ball lightning is heavy positive and negative air ions formed during a strike by ordinary lightning, the recombination of which is prevented by their hydrolysis. Under the influence of electrical forces, they gather into a ball and can coexist for quite a long time until their water “coat” collapses. This also explains the fact that the color of ball lightning is different and its direct dependence on the time of existence of ball lightning itself - the rate of destruction of water “coats” and the beginning of the process of avalanche recombination.

see also

Literature

Books and reports on ball lightning

• Stakhanov I.P. On the physical nature of ball lightning. - Moscow: (Atomizdat, Energoatomizdat, Scientific World), (1979, 1985, 1996). - 240 s.
• S. Singer The nature of ball lightning. Per. from English M.:Mir, 1973, 239 p.
• Imenitov I. M., Tikhii D. Ya. Beyond the laws of science. M.: Atomizdat, 1980
• Grigoriev A. I. Ball lightning. Yaroslavl: YarSU, 2006. 200 p.
• Lisitsa M. P., Valakh M. Ya. Interesting optics. Atmospheric and space optics. Kyiv: Logos, 2002, 256 p.
• Brand W. Der Kugelblitz. Hamburg, Henri Grand, 1923
• Stakhanov I. P. On the physical nature of ball lightning M.: Energoatomizdat, 1985, 208 p.
• Kunin V.N. Ball lightning at the experimental site. Vladimir: Vladimir State University, 2000, 84 p.

Articles in magazines

• Torchigin V. P., Torchigin A. V. Ball lightning as a concentrate of light. Chemistry and Life, 2003, No. 1, 47-49.
• Barry J. Ball lightning. Beaded lightning. Per. from English M.:Mir, 1983, 228 p.
• Shabanov G.D., Sokolovsky B.Yu.// Plasma Physics Reports. 2005. V31. No. 6. P512.
• Shabanov G.D.// Technical Physics Letters. 2002. V28. No. 2. P164.

Links

• Smirnov B. M.“Observational properties of ball lightning”//UFN, 1992, vol. 162, issue 8.
• A. Kh. Amirov, V. L. Bychkov. The influence of thunderstorm atmospheric conditions on the properties of ball lightning // ZhTF, 1997, volume 67, N4.
• A. V. Shavlov.“Parameters of ball lightning calculated using a two-temperature plasma model”// 2008
• R. F. Avramenko, V. A. Grishin, V. I. Nikolaeva, A. S. Pashchina, L. P. Poskacheeva. Experimental and theoretical studies of the features of plasmoid formation // Applied Physics, 2000, N3, pp. 167-177
• M. I. Zelikin."Plasma superconductivity and ball lightning." SMFN, volume 19, 2006, pp. 45-69

Ball lightning in fiction

• Russell, Eric Frank"The Sinister Barrier" 1939

Notes

1. I. Stakhanov “The physicist who knew more about ball lightning than anyone else”
2. This Russian version of the name is listed in the list of UK telephone codes. There are also variants of Widecomb-in-the-Moor and a direct dubbing of the original English Widecomb-in-the-Moor - Widecombe-in-the-Moor
3. A conductor from Kazan saved passengers from ball lightning
4. Ball lightning scared a villager in the Brest region - Incident News. [email protected]
5. K. L. Corum, J. F. Corum “Experiments on the creation of ball lightning using a high-frequency discharge and electrochemical fractal clusters” // UFN, 1990, v. 160, issue 4.
6. A. I. Egorova, S. I. Stepanova and G. D. Shabanova, Demonstration of ball lightning in the laboratory, UFN, vol. 174, issue 1, pp. 107-109, (2004)
7. P. L. Kapitsa On the nature of ball lightning DAN USSR 1955. Volume 101, No. 2, pp. 245-248.
8. B.M.Smirnov, Physics Reports, 224 (1993) 151, Smirnov B.M. Physics of ball lightning // UFN, 1990, v. 160. Issue 4. pp.1-45
9. D. J. Turner, Physics Reports 293 (1998) 1
10. E.A. Manykin, M.I. Ojovan, P.P. Poluektov. Condensed Rydberg matter. Nature, No. 1 (1025), 22-30 (2001). http://www.fidel-kastro.ru/nature/vivovoco.nns.ru/VV/JOURNAL/NATURE/01_01/RIDBERG.HTM
11. A. I. Klimov, D. M. Melnichenko, N. N. Sukovatkin “LONG-LIVED ENERGY-INTENSING EXCITING FORMATIONS AND PLASMOIDS IN LIQUID NITROGEN”
12. Segev M.G. Phys. Today, 51 (8) (1998), 42
13. "V.P. Torchigin, 2003. On the nature of ball lightning. DAN, vol. 389, no. 3, pp. 41-44.

DOES BALL LIGHTNING EXIST?

Over the long history of the study of ball lightning, the most frequent questions were not questions about how this ball is formed or what its properties are, although these problems are quite complex. But most often the question was asked: “Does ball lightning really exist?” This persistent skepticism is largely due to the difficulties encountered in attempting to experimentally study ball lightning using existing methods, as well as the lack of a theory that would provide a sufficiently complete or even satisfactory explanation of this phenomenon.

Those who deny the existence of ball lightning explain reports about it by optical illusions or erroneous identification of other natural luminous bodies with it. Often cases of the possible appearance of ball lightning are attributed to meteors. In some cases, phenomena described in the literature as ball lightning apparently actually were meteors. However, meteor trails are almost invariably observed as straight lines, while the path characteristic of ball lightning, on the contrary, is most often curved. Further, ball lightning appears, with very rare exceptions, during thunderstorms, while meteors were observed under such conditions only by chance. An ordinary lightning discharge, the direction of the channel of which coincides with the observer’s line of sight, may appear to be a ball. As a result, an optical illusion can occur - the blinding light of the flash remains in the eye as an image, even when the observer changes the direction of the line of sight. This is why it has been suggested that the false image of the ball appears to be moving along a complex trajectory.

In the first detailed discussion of the problem of ball lightning, Arago (Dominique François Jean Arago is a French physicist and astronomer who published the first detailed work on ball lightning in the world scientific literature, summarizing the 30 eyewitness observations he collected, which marked the beginning of the study of this natural phenomenon) touched on this issue. In addition to a number of apparently reliable observations, he noted that an observer seeing the ball descending at a certain angle from the side cannot experience an optical illusion such as the one described above. Arago's arguments apparently seemed quite convincing to Faraday: while rejecting theories according to which ball lightning is an electric discharge, he emphasized that he did not deny the existence of these spheres.

50 years after the publication of Arago's review of the problem of ball lightning, it was again suggested that the image of ordinary lightning moving directly towards the observer was preserved for a long time, and Lord Kelvin in 1888 at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science argued that ball lightning - This is an optical illusion caused by bright light. The fact that many reports cited the same dimensions of ball lightning was attributed to the fact that this illusion was associated with a blind spot in the eye.

A debate between supporters and opponents of these points of view took place at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in 1890. The topic of one of the reports submitted to the Academy was the numerous luminous spheres that appeared in tornadoes and resembled ball lightning. These luminous spheres flew into houses through chimneys, punched round holes in windows, and generally exhibited very unusual properties attributed to ball lightning. After the report, one of the Academy members noted that the amazing properties of ball lightning that were discussed should be taken critically, since observers apparently became victims of optical illusions. In a heated discussion, the observations made by uneducated peasants were declared not worthy of attention, after which the former Emperor of Brazil, a foreign member of the Academy, who was present at the meeting, declared that he, too, had seen ball lightning.

Many reports of natural luminous spheres were explained by the fact that observers mistakenly mistook the lights of St. for ball lightning. Elma. Lights of St. Elma is a relatively commonly observed luminous area formed by a corona discharge at the end of a grounded object, say a pole. They occur when the strength of the atmospheric electric field increases significantly, for example during a thunderstorm. With particularly strong fields, which often occur near mountain peaks, this form of discharge can be observed on any object raised above the ground, and even on the hands and heads of people. However, if we consider the moving spheres to be the lights of St. Elm, then we must assume that the electric field continuously moves from one object, playing the role of a discharge electrode, to another similar object. They tried to explain the message that such a ball was moving over a row of fir trees by saying that a cloud with a field associated with it was passing over these trees. Proponents of this theory considered the lights of St. Elma and all the other balls of light separated from their original attachment point and flew through the air. Since a corona discharge necessarily requires the presence of an electrode, the separation of such balls from a grounded tip indicates that we are talking about some other phenomenon, perhaps a different form of discharge. There are several reports of fireballs that were initially located on points acting as electrodes, and then moved freely in the manner described above.

Other luminous objects have been observed in nature, which were sometimes mistaken for ball lightning. For example, the nightjar is a nocturnal insectivorous bird, to whose feathers sometimes luminous rotten insects from the hollow in which it nests stick, flies in zigzags above the ground, swallowing insects; from some distance it can be mistaken for ball lightning.

The fact that in any given case ball lightning may turn out to be something else is a very strong argument against its existence. A major researcher of high-voltage currents once noted that, for many years observing thunderstorms and photographing them panoramicly, he had never seen ball lightning. In addition, when talking with alleged eyewitnesses of ball lightning, this researcher was always convinced that their observations could have a different and completely justified interpretation. The constant resurgence of such arguments emphasizes the importance of detailed and reliable observations of ball lightning.

Most often, the observations on which knowledge about ball lightning is based have been questioned because these mysterious balls were seen only by people who did not have any scientific training. This opinion turned out to be completely wrong. The appearance of ball lightning was observed from a distance of just a few tens of meters by a scientist, an employee of a German laboratory studying atmospheric electricity; lightning was also observed by an employee of the Tokyo Central Meteorological Observatory. Ball lightning was also witnessed by a meteorologist, physicists, a chemist, a paleontologist, the director of a meteorological observatory and several geologists. Among scientists of various specialties, ball lightning was more often seen and astronomers reported on it.

In very rare cases, when ball lightning appeared, an eyewitness was able to obtain photographs. These photographs, as well as other information concerning ball lightning, have often received insufficient attention.

The information collected convinced most meteorologists that their skepticism was unfounded. On the other hand, there is no doubt that many scientists working in other fields take a negative view, both due to intuitive skepticism and the unavailability of data on ball lightning.