Ball lightning

[Ian Robinson]

Anyone here ever seen it in person ?

My dad used to tell stories about seeing it in Queensland when he was working as a stockman (mostly up north in the Normanton area) back in the 1930s , also known as Min Min lights.

[jungle11]

My dad told me about it once, story's a little vague to me now but....

He was a salesman when he was young, and one afternoon he was in a client's office in a highrise in Brisbane. There was a storm raging outside and all of a sudden the office was lit up. He said it looked like a ball of lightning and close to five seconds

I think it's for real - dad's an honest sort of bloke - I'd love to see it for myself though (from the ground because he said it was pretty frightening from where he saw it)EDIT = Dad said it seemed to expand and sounded like a rapid series of explosions

Don't think it's the same as minmin lights though - I think they are for real too but are something else, perhaps static or magnetic? Surely somebody's tried to study them by now - they seem to be commen enough.

[xelasnave]

A mere eddy of the universal flow I suspect
alex

[GrahamL]

My father told me that while watching a thunderstorm pass over our home once .. A bright flash of a lightning strike caught his attention .. by the time he had looked that way it was long gone .. but on the lampost it had presumably hit was a ball off crackling light which proceeded to wobble down the pole and roll its way down the gutter before dissappearing with a bang .. To this day he has no idea what this was or can even try to offer an explanation ?

http://video.google.com.au/videosearch?hl=en&q=ball+lightning&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=8&ct=title#

[Kevnool]

That video was really interesting Graham.
Cheers Kev.

[Ian Robinson]

Dad's favourite explaination of the Min Mins was marsh gas igniting due to lightning.

A few years ago we discussed ball lighting in a physics topic I took ,a 3rd year topic on advanced electromagnetics , when we discussed plasma physics. Very interesting stuff.

[GrahamL]

With what my Dad saw .. I thought maybe this was some sort of eye to brain meltdown over being exposed to a really bright flash of lightning very close ?.. Years ago a friend and I were walking along a street when A lightning hit happened beside us .. I don't know how close but it wasn't raining yet thankfully.. all I saw was a blinding white flash to my right with an Instantanious deafening crack of thunder .. we ran and turned back and
crashed into each other( much to the delight of a guy on his balcony over the road )
Nothing noticed in regards to balls of lightning but this was for sure a rattling event
in which I couldn't offer much close up on what was happening

Anyone in the fields wan't to offer there thoughts on whats going on science wise
with ball lightning ?.