BALL LIGHTNING anybody ever seen it?

[IwasatWDWforamonth]

I saw ball lightning when I was 8. I was spending the night with my cousin Jody at my grandmas house.
We woke up to this glowing ball(soccer ball size) hovering about 3 foot above us, we snuck away from it, when My grandma told us not to move.
Saw it go back thru the wall or out the window, cant remember which.
It something i'll never forget and always wonder if i'll ever see it agian.

 

[Virgo10]

Cool! That's a pretty rare occurrence. When I lived in Plymouth, MA, there was a story about a bunch of factory workers that saw it in one of the towns near to us. I believe the National Weather Service sent people to interview them.

Never seen it myself but I have seen lightning strike right in front of two different houses I've lived in. One of the episodes I have on video tape.

 

[MickeyMike]

I saw some once. I was at work, sitting at a table in the basement of the building. A coworker was sitting across from me. Without warning a bright ball appeared under the table, just hovering about midway between the bottom of the table and the floor.

We both pushed our chairs back to see what in the world was going on, although you couldn't look at it straight on because of the it's brightness.

Then, after maybe 10 seconds the thing "blew up". There was a huge bang and the thing just dissappeared. Our hearing was impaired for the rest of the day because of the noise it made.

I remember shortly after it happened that a security guard came running into the basement room and asked if everyone was alright. He had been outside and saw lightning hit our building.

 

[tiggger1]

I didnt but my grandmother did, We were in Falmouth MA at our cottage for a few weeks. One day there was a really nasty storm. we had lost power and my grandmother and my aunt were playing cards by a huge candle when there was a rumble and a flash and a huge crack. My grandmother started screaming and we all come running. the candle on the table was cut in half and partially melted and the mirror on the wall fell and was burning hot. we believe the lightninig came in through the picture window and hit the candle and then hit the mirror and went back out.

 

[UnderTheMistletoe]

Yes... it was hovering at the back of our property line when we were kids. Our backyard was on a hill and there was a man-made squail that was required so that our the houses behind us (right on a river) didn't get washed away. It was the wierded thing becuase it would bounce up and down behind the squail, so it appeared and disappeared. We tried to take a picture, but the clerks never ran the print because, "It didn't come out." It was a ball of light on an otherwise black photo! We wanted it!

In Cajun country Louisiana, I believe they are called feufollets.

 

[dundee10]

Back in the late 60's, when I was probably 10-11 years old, we had a summer in which something changed about the powerlines in our community. Whenever an thunderstorm came up, a ball of lightning would travel down the line to our house. Strangely, it would enter our house and come out an outlet at our kitchen counter, drift out a foot or two, then "explode" with a tremendous bang.

We just learned when a storm was coming up to clean off the counter and get out of the room. A neighbor of ours told us about taking his shotgun and trying to shoot the lightning ball one day as it drifted down the powerline toward our house.

The power company supposedly tried unsuccessfully to do something (lightning arrestors?), but it didn't help. Then the phenomenon stopped as suddenly as it began.

 

[Binkrin]

I have never even heard of this. I hope someday I get the chance to see it. It sounds really neat!

 

[Poohgirl]

Ok I will preface this by saying I rarely admit the following because it sounds so weird but here goes. You may have just solved my "alien"! When I was 5 years old I lived in a high rise that had 6 foot windows. During a storm, while my mother was sleeping I went into the living room and SWORE (to this day I see it in my head) I saw small "alien saucer", ok more like a bright ball of moving light, about a foot diameter come through the the window into the living room, hover, and then disappear. Needless to say I was hysterical and my mother never believed my "alien" story...this would make a bit more sense!

 

[grimley1968]

This all sounds extremely dangerous. I've never seen it before, but it sounds like large masses of ungrounded static electricity left over from lightning strikes (which are really static electricity but on a much larger scale). If you see this in your home, it probably is a good indication you need to have an electrician come over and check for grounding, check for uneven grounding if you live in a large building, and make sure your wiring is up to code.

I'm just glad none of these stories has involved anything worse than seeing this or hearing large bangs from its sudden discharge.

 

[IwasatWDWforamonth]

I always wonder what would have happened if we had touched it, and I wonder why it was by us I dont remember it making any noise, my grandma woke up because we were screaming.
We were sleeping on the floor in the living room because my grandmas house is haunted some guy hung himself upstairs and there is only one bedroom downstairs to this day my grandma uses the upstairs for storage only. But thats a whole other topic And they actually had ball lighting more than one time, I remember my parents saying that my aunt who lived right next to my grandma had every thing that was plugged in fried one time.

At our house I once saw lightning strike the clubhouse which is quite far from our house but when it happened it was so bright and loud I thought it hit something in our backyard. That night we watched the power line glow orange, that was really strange.

Im actually terrified of lightning and when a thunderstorm comes I usually pack up I have a suitcase ready to put stuff I cant replace like photos, jewelry and my favorite clothes and sometimes I put my bird in her carrier cause Im always worried lighting is going to strike. I know that must sound looney

My dad had arc fault circuit interrupter breakers put in our house, they are supposed to stop arcing in the wiring I guess, but I dont think anything will protect us from lightning.
I found an article that said that 5 percent of people have seen ball lighting.

 

[Sonya]

DH and I have. When we moved into our new home about 3 years ago. There was a terrible thunderstorm and we were afraid there was going to be a tornado so we stayed up late. There was some bad lightning and thunder so we looked out the window and saw a ball of light about 2 blocks over. Then another, then another. They kept zooming across, up, and down an area about the size of a backyard. I don't know how long we watched the balls. It was really creepy. Finally I was creeped out enough to turn away and go to bed. I imagine we watched for about 10 minutes. I contacted the local news' weatherman and he said there weren't any reports of anyone else seeing them.

 

[Felicia]

Never, ever heard of this!