What does ball lightning look like (photo)?

What is the phenomenon of ball lightning is not known for certain. There are about four hundred theories trying to explain its nature, but none of them satisfies all the conditions for the emergence, life and behavior of this amazing phenomenon. And although the observations of eyewitnesses go back to hoary antiquity - the first documentary evidence dates back to the 6th century AD, when Bishop Gregory of Tours wrote about a vision of a fireball during the consecration of the chapel - for a long time the very existence of ball lightning as a natural object was questioned. Later, many who had a chance to see it spoke about what ball lightning looks like, and the stories were most often strikingly similar, but this did not bother the skeptics: they pointed to some discrepancies in the "testimony" and argued that, most likely, it was about a complex optical phenomenon or just about the illusion of observers.

Historical observations of ball lightning

the first half of the 17th century. It was in England. According to eyewitnesses, a huge ball with a diameter of at least 2.5 meters appeared in the church during a thunderstorm and caused quite a stir, killing four people and thoroughly damaging the interior of the temple. Later, lightning of this size was not observed. Was this incident in reality or was it a figment of fantasy - especially since after the disappearance of the lightning in the room there was supposedly a smell of sulfur, a clear sign of the presence of the devil? no one guessed the lightning, without leaving us even a picture of an unusual incident. The first attempts to draw ball lightning "hot on the trail" were made only in the 19th century.

Later, the cases of observation became more frequent, which is not surprising: the number of the world's population grew rapidly, and the opportunities for humanity to come into contact with the unknown became more and more. Today it can be stated that the average statistical ball lightning has the following parameters:

  • size from 2-3 to 30 centimeters;
  • spherical shape (but not always, some witnesses speak of oval, jellyfish and even pear-shaped zippers);
  • lifetime - about 10 seconds, occasionally - up to a minute or a little more;
  • movement speed - 0.5-1 meter per second, sometimes it hangs in place;
  • color - warm (red, orange or yellow), much less often - cold (white or blue);
  • methods of appearance - various, including from an electrical outlet or "leaking" from the street into the room through narrow cracks;
  • Approximately 20 percent of cases were observed in calm weather, without thunderstorms.

Modern study of the phenomenon

Who has not studied ball lightning: world-famous scientists, young specialists, and outright charlatans-ufologists! And although a generally accepted theory of the occurrence of lightning has not been created and it has not even been possible to reproduce it in laboratory conditions, a wealth of scientific material has been accumulated. There are also many photos that capture the appearance of a mysterious object in various places: in a field, forest, city, indoors. Fortunately, almost everyone now has photo and video cameras in their phones.

And in 2012, lightning accidentally fell into the "field of view" of a spectrograph installed by a Chinese scientific expedition in Tibet. It turned out that its spectrum is filled with lines of minerals that make up the earth's crust - silicon, calcium and iron. While a significant part of the previous theories associated the appearance of ball lightning with the ionization of air. Without a doubt, the development of science (and, first of all, fixing equipment) will allow, over time, to study the object in more detail, and we will know exactly what it is and what ball lightning looks like.

.