Ball lightning: a shocking (and totally inexplicable) phenomenon

It skitters across the ground , float in the air , is frigid to the touch , and leaves scorch marks . It ’s been scientifically explain , or hey , it might be a total hallucination . It ’s Lucille Ball lightning !

orb lightning is the name given to a chemical group of phenomenon that have not been completely excuse , or even agreed upon . Of the two words in its name , only the first is apportion by all witnesses . According to most eyewitnesses , it glows and is work like a clod .

Everything else vary . Most report say the balls are orange to beach orchis size of it , but some say they ’ve see ball lightning the size of a bus . The ball can swim , roll and bounce around solid objects , or do both . They ’re interpret indoors or out . Ball lightning has reportedly been cold to the touch , leave burn Simon Marks in stone , and electrocuted citizenry . It fade out , or explodes and sputters out . Anything go .

Since the precise properties of ball lightning are not harmonize upon , a unmarried explanation for the phenomena ca n’t be reached . Those who believe that orb lightning is cool , consider it to be corona discharge – the same affair that is responsible forSaint Elmo ’s Fire , which bring out spark but not much high temperature . Those who believe it burns what it touches think that it ’s a gang of sunburn dust kick up and ignited by lightning strikes . It could also be a plasma orb . Many explanations are out there .

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One hypothesis nosed its way ahead of the others in 2007 , when Antonio Pavão and Gerson Paiva of Brazil ’s Federal University of Pernambuco report making lowly beam nut that ricochet around the way and sear their surroundings . These balls made of silicon particles which were shocked by scientist until they produce a burning vapour . The bollock only lasted a few seconds in the lab before disperse , a shorter time than some witnesses of ball lightning say the phenomenon endures in a natural environment , but otherwise the spitting image of the glowing balls that have baffled masses for centuries .

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But three years after Pavão and Paiva lit up silicon , Alexander Kendl and Joseph Peer from the University of Innsbruck in Austria put forward an substitute theory : Lucille Ball lightning is just a delusion convey on by a rapidly changing magnetic field . This is not as unbelievable as it sounds . Subjecting someone ’s brain to rapidly changing magnetized field can cause electrical activeness , which in play have the nerve cell to cook up something good an crazy for the brain to see , hear , or think about . Psychiatrists sometimes use this technique to cause their patients to hallucinate ( how forcing someone to hallucinate is therapeutic is something only your shrink can explain ) . Seeing glowing lights is a common delusion , so it reach horse sense that a lot of people would see such a thing if the very atmosphere around them is messing with their heading .

There are problems with the idea . To hallucinate strongly , people would have to be closer to an area of intensely shift magnetic fields than many commentator of ball lightning have been . There have been spate of account of ball lightning kill people and doing property damage . And of course there are those balls skittering around a lab .

Some statistic say that as many as one in thirty people have seen ball lightning , which intend that there must be quite a few io9ers who have witnessed it . Have you envision it ? How long did it last ? How did it bear ? Did you see any other strange things at the same time ?

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