Light balls are sometimes called Ball Lightning which is a misnomer since they do not look like or relate to lightning. Actually is looks more like a huge sonoluminescent bubble floating in air. It usually appears as a mysterious glowing sphere which drifts through the air. It can also appear to bounce along the ground. Light balls are described as glowing balls of plasma. The phenomena usually lasts for only 5 seconds, but sometimes remains longer for up to a few minutes. Some of the balls are blindingly bright, others have almost no illumination and appeared grayish. The temperature within was evaluated to be a little bit higher than the solar temperature; 6,500 Kelvin degrees, however these were also reported to pass through glass and being touched with no burning effects, and also do not float up as would do a hot object. These plasmas can suddenly change in size and shape without any change in their measured temperature.
Nominal size of reported light balls being the size of an orange or grapefruit. The diameter of the balls range from a few centimeters to a few meters, with the average around 20 cm. They are sometimes oval, cylindrical, flame, pear, ring, blob shaped or even cornered shapes like a cube. Cylindrical forms can sometimes be flattened, bent, or twisted into a variety forms. Sometimes they have halos, sparks, or radial streamers around them. Some appear to be fibrous. Some are solid in appearance, others are hollow.
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An enlarged picture of the rectangular plasma formation after changing from a sphere,
as well as the corresponding 3-D Point Spread Function (PSF) that is used in order
to simultaneously obtain the peak intensity and the apparent dimension, in pixels,
of the target. Date: August 18, 2001. Image processing by M. Teodorani. |
Various colors of ball lightning have been seen. Sometimes the colors change as well. The phenomena usually occurs during or right after a thunderstorm. In most surveys about 70% occured right after a lightning strike.
Ball lightning has also been seen without any detected electrical storm. In a shockingly high percentage of cases the balls actually entered in buildings - through windows and doors. Sometimes they cause no damage to property - yet other times they burn holes.
Balls have been reported as eminating from tornadoes, cyclones, and hurricanes. In these cases high electric fields are present.
Light balls have been seen on many occasions traveling along fences or power lines. Sometimes they appear to roll, spin, hop, or vibrate. Some of them have been possible to view only under infrared vision and they were observed to continously flip their shape from spherical to cube.
Some people believe that ball lightning movement is guided by electric fields EM energies), which might explain their attraction to conductors. There movement doesn't seem related to wind speed or velocity. Ball lightning sometimes carries a significant charge, and sometimes no charge. Some witnesses have reported being seriously shocked and others not at all. People have sometimes gotten burns similar to those caused by ultraviolet radiation from touching ball lightning. Most reports show no evidence of radiant heat from the balls, even at close range. Most researchers agree that ligtning balls are real, but no one knows exactly what they are. Researchers are also unable to reproduce free floating ball lightning, however you may try to create a plasma ball in your microwave oven. More details here. This experiment shows that plasma balls are real and that energy can be trapped in a bubble or 3D space. We know that these light balls in general emit light, and can be considered to be a huge 3 dimensional electromagnetic standing wave structure. It has the same properties as an unstable mass, in that it radiates light, and most probably other forms of radiation. Due to it being unstable, it is very similar to a fast decaying radioactive substance. Unlike a stable atom, following our atom model, the structure will not be stable, but will break down slowly from a complex structure (resembling a sphere) to simpler structures similar to the basic platonics. Once the basic platonic breaks down, the light ball disappears. This also explains the fact that people saw these light balls change into cornered shapes before they disappear. In a way, the decay of a light ball is similar to dismantling a crystal structure back into its elementary components.
