Possible ball lightning video

[Andrea Griffa]

I think given Roger's 82 tors this year that he has some special power. My bet was he whispered, "Let there be ball lightning" and then it happened.

Roger is not human, he has something like a "meteo-power": whenever he wants a meteorologic event, he obtains all that he needs. As for the possible ball lighting I believe it could be; it's not sure whether or not the ball has to move fast or slow. Probably in this case it was very fast and headed toward the ground.
I'm pretty sure it could not be a normal fast moving object hit by the lightning: too fast to be. That said we could have at least some probablitity it could be a ball lightning.

 

[edward oneal]

I am no expert by any means, but looking at the video it looks like a hail stone falling. The sun looks like it is out and behind the person filming. I have pictures of hail falling between me and a tornado with the sun out, a lot of hail and shows up bright. And have had many times when out in front of a strong super cell some big stones are thrown out from the anvil. So my question to who ever was there was any hail falling at the time?

 

[Andy Jackson]

I'm pretty surprised that most are skeptical that the video did capture ball lightning. So is it the idea that ball lightning is a myth in general, or just this video example?

 

[Jeremy Gilchrist]

I don't think it is hail. I does appear like it could be some sort of electrical discharge to me. I would like to see a slow motion version.

 

[Jeremy Gilchrist]

Ignore the sparks from the fire in the video the real action occurs beginning around 27 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ioN-3UWYrY

NOTE: This is not my video.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Ignore the sparks from the fire in the video the real action occurs beginning around 27 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ioN-3UWYrY

NOTE: This is not my video.

That is clearly aircraft landing lights as the plane breaks the clouds and turns. I have seen that many times while shooting lightning. However, the video everyone is discussing is a mystery. The timing of the inter-cloud lightning discharge and the mystery 'ball of light" is interesting, as is the color of the object, appearing more like that of a lightning bolt on video media. However, I am not aware of any reports of ball lightning moving at that speed, since it would likely have little mass. In addition, the only legitimate reports of ball lightning usually involve slow moving objects associated with some type of lightning vs. metal or earth discharge, e.g., hitting a light pole, inside an aircraft, etc.

W.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Probably a neutrino.

 

[Jason Foster]

Ignore the sparks from the fire in the video the real action occurs beginning around 27 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ioN-3UWYrY

NOTE: This is not my video.

Seen that plenty of times....that be a plane. It looks like it is just going in and out of the cloud. Also could be turning, but didn't see for sure with the low resolution video.

add:
Wow...I need to refresh pages before posting when I leave them open for hours...LOL. Duplicated what Faidley said.

 

[T.J. Tobler]

While i am not totally sure at the validity of this video. My own experience with ball lightning is quite remarkable. I didnt really know what to call it at the time the closest description i could come up with was a plasma ball. Anyway im sure a few of you may remember 6/8/2010 storm of this year that formed around Ottawa,ks and moved eventually moved through Harrisonville, mo where it became tornado warned. The CG from this line of storms was tremendous. It was constantly dropping very large powerful bolts. Somehow i managed to get 15 or so pictures during the day with cg in them while taking structure shots. Anyway on that day my girlfriend and i were sitting outside of freeman mo at 38.614813,-94.487382 in a low valley near the oil storage facility located on the edge of freeman. We were watching the gust front go over head when three very large very close cg's hit in the fields to either side of us. My gf proceeded to freak out and told me she was done and wanted to go home. These strikes were CLOSE i mean really close im very glad niether of us were outside of the car. well as soon as those hit i instantly turned around to get back onto 2 highway. I looked up and saw this glowing ball in the sky probably at around 30ft falling very slowly but moving about erratically it almost appeared bouncing off something. It appeared about the size of a baseball-softball. It ended up landing right in front of my vehicle like within 6 ft when it hit the ground it bounced around for a couple seconds with what looked like sparks coming off of it. then just disappeared. i got out to see if there was any remnants and there wasnt anything there. It was by far one of the craziest things i had every seen i wish i could have gotten a picture or video of it but i had just put my camera in the console to start driving. it was so freaking close it was like i could touch it though. Definitely an experience i will never forget. I later came up with a description of a plasma ball while i was trying to explain it to some of my buddies. the way it acted in the air reminded me of watching plasma on a discovery channel show believe it was one Michio Kaku hosted about future tech. To me it seemed like it was something that had possibly originated from the initial CG barrage given the close proximity in time and location to the strikes combined with its apparent rate of descent. But again that is all assumptions. I didnt even know there was such a thing as ball lightning theory up until this thread. lol

TJ

LOL not trying to say its called somthing else that was just what i came up with to describe it at the time. i just thought id share my own experience with ball lightning. It definitely one of the coolest things i have ever seen.

 

[KendraReed]

Regardless of what anyone wants to call it, it was cool as hell.

 

[Dennis Dennison]

Well for me-it aint no big or other such-it came out of the cloud itself and had an independent arc to its fall----whatever it was--it was pretty cool

 

[Scott Olson]

First off, yes, the second video is of an aircraft poking through the clouds briefly with landing lights. You can even see the blue/red and strobes.

I've read quite a few accounts with ball lightning and most of them seem to involve a very strong sulfur smell.

What do you think Mr. Tesla?

With the present experiences I am satisfied that the phenomenon of the fireball is
produced by the sudden heating. to high incandescence, of a mass of air or other gas as
the case may be, by the passage of a powerful discharge. There are many ways or less
plausible in which a mass of air might be thus affected by the spark discharge, kut I
hold the following explanation of the mode of production of the ball as being, most
likely of all others which I have considered, the true one. When sudden and very powerful
discharges pass through the air, the tremendous expansion of some portions of the latter
and subsequent rapid cooling and condensation gives rise to the creation of partial vacua
in the places of greatest development of heat. These vacuous spaces, owing to the
properties of the gas, are most likely to assume the shape of hollow spheres when, upon
cooling, the air from all around rushes in to fill the cavity created by the explosive
dilatation and subsequent contraction. Suppose now that this result would have been
produced by one spark or streamer discharge and that now a second discharge, and
possible many more, follows in the path of the first. What will happen? Before answering
the question we must remember that, contrary to existing popular notions, the currents
passing through the air have the strength of many hundreds and even thousands of amperes

 

[cedwards]

Looking at it full screen, it looks like a piece of trash blowing in the wind and much closer to the camera than most people think. It follows a path very similar to a piece of grass if you through it up in the inflow.

 

[Brandon Jenkins]

Looking at it full screen, it looks like a piece of trash blowing in the wind and much closer to the camera than most people think. It follows a path very similar to a piece of grass if you through it up in the inflow.

I am in agreement with you. When I watch this I see debris of some kind relatively close to the camera. Whether it is a bug, trash, or a something else I cannot say for certain but it does not appear to be very far from the camera. It appears to be moving at a very high rate of speed but this is because of the relative proximity to the camera IMO.

 

[Tom Howley]

Well, a scientific explanation is beyond my knowledge or skill level so I can't speculate but I can definitely tell you it most certainly was not trash blowing in the wind and was not at all close to the vehicles. Nor does it seem possible to have been an insect at that distance which was pretty far away.

I was there standing next to the camera operator at the time. We weren't even sure we saw anything except a brief "flash" there until later when he shared the video. It happened that fast and was not repeated. At the time, for me anyway, it was more "huh, did I really see that?" than "what exactly was that".

Oh, to answer an earlier question it was not hailing and did not hail before or after the event, at least no where near our location.

So, I still don't know what it was.