Ball_Light

Ball Lightning is one of those phenomena which is attributed with all kinds of things from Spontaneous Combustion through to crop circles, yet not much is known about it and it is so rare that it is rarely witnessed by anybody with a scientific background. It is possibly caused by the ionisation that occurs at a lightning strike and appears to be a self contained plasma. Eye witness accounts of it also back up this story. A Plasma (4th state of matter) is created when atoms are broken down to a cloud of 'liberated' particles which will circle each other in a toroidal pattern. There is suggestion that a Tornado is actually a form of plasma and I will try and include the link to a very amazing document on it. It is certainly well over the border of paranormal when after a tornado, blades of grass have been embedded in steel and tyres have been found around undamaged trees where there is no possible explanation as to how it happened. Here are some first hand observations I made with several mates who are also curious about bizarre phenomenon.

It was about 1994 and I was living with some friends in Bullcreek, a nice area in Perths Southern suburbs. We were bored and a friend was reading the Community Newspaper. "Check this out, there is an article here about some ball of light hitting a school oval and ripping trees out of the ground" I had a look and it was in Booragoon, also a nice area and not far away. My reaction was "Get in the car, lets go check it out" I knew it would possibly be my only chance to see something weird like that. We jumped into my car and went for a drive, it was dark and when we went to the school oval, there was no sign of the trees or the Ball Lightnings aftermath. I was disappointed, but the lack of tyre marks on the oval (And undamaged Log barriers) ruled out my 4 wheel drive cutting up theory. That was the end of that, at least until I spotted a bloke putting his bin out not too far away. I wandered over and had a chat to him. When I asked him if he knew anything about the weird things that had happened, he said he had heard a noise that night and looked out of his front window. He saw that lightning had hit a pole and pointed to the pole, he said he saw a light travel along the wire and shoot across the oval, it seemed to run along the ground ripping out trees. He pointed to a section of the oval. He had a perfect view of it from his front window. I wandered back to the car and told my friends what I found out and we went to the spot he'd pointed out. We found a black line, fairly constant thickness, roughly 5mm, where the ground was scorched. The scorch line lead to a circle of shredded wood which was the remains of a tree trunk. About 2 inches under it were the jagged remains of the trunk, unfortunately, the rest of the tree that had been 'thrown' onto the oval had been cleared up already. I collected a sample and one day I will find somebody who can figure out if it was just used to fill in the hole or if it was the blasted remains of part of the tree. The line continued and joined probably another dozen ripped out trees together before stopping at a cyclone fence which was a complete rectangle surrounding a small ditch. Every post was bent in towards the centre (Magnetic field perhaps?). Whatever had happened to the trees, wasn't done by the school gardeners, and besides, there are easier ways to remove a tree than cutting it BELOW the ground, like just digging it out for example. After taking the time to remove a tree by cutting it below the ground?, wouldn't you take the extra 5 minutes to fill the hole with sand to protect childrens feet from the splinters sticking up or being tripped over? If it was a hoax, the guy who lived across the road would have to have been involved since he had told me the whole ball lightning story in sufficient detail for me to find the spot and he was very enthusiastic about it. Making up a bullshit story in sufficient detail as to describe the location of 'evidence' is certainly a lot of effort to go to considering it wouldn't achieve anything. Vandalism is not something most adult people would consider in the name of a laugh either. How do you make a fairly even burn line across grass for 10 or so metres? A cigarette lighter perhaps? Again, why would you bother!! In my opinion, there is no doubt that it was an actual ball lightning strike.

Scientists for years have tried to figure out how it works but because they can't create it, they can't prove its existence. The most ridiculous theory came from New Zealand where scientists figured out that it must be methane gas igniting and being trapped in a convection. Trust the Kiwis to try and devise a theory based on sheep!! The most popular theory is that a lightning strike burns some metal off a conductor. The superheated ions form a plasma. Try sticking a wad of foil in an OLD microwave under the magnetron and switching it on. It damages the microwave so you'd be best to use one off the side of the road, You will see a yellow plasma ball shoot off the foil and scorch the side of the cooking cavity. Aluminium ions form the plasma and the microwave radiation feeds the plasma until it earths on the side of the case and dissipates. The main fault in the ball lightning theory is that a plasma ball needs a huge electric field to sustain it, ie the microwave radiation. If you have ever had a high tension lead with 15kv flowing through it at a substantial power level running along a dusty floor, you will notice the dust clears a path along the lead. Why is that, the insulation can handle the voltage without allowing any arcing, yet there is a level of influence occuring through the insulation? The answer is simple, electricity doesn't need to arc or conduct through something to travel. Arcing is caused by the voltage breaking down the resistance of the air then flowing through it, but if the voltage isn't high enough, the electrons are still there in the form of a field but just doesn't flow. How does electricity know if the distance is small enough to arc, it can't see after all and it doesn't arc part way then turn back when it can't reach its target. Electricity actually does leave the conductor and it does reach out for an earth. On any conductor, there is a field of electricity surrounding it which expands with voltage. The force is simply electrons which form part of every atom being knocked around by other electrons at a highly 'excited' state. The larger the field, the further out the cloud of excited electrons is reaching. If the voltage increases and the field extends as far as an earth, the excess electrons will all focus on that point and power will flow with enough concentrated energy to ionize the gas to a glowing state, hence the field appears as a visible arc. An arc is actually an invisible cloud of electrons and the gas is what actually glows. In a microwave oven, the radiation is simply a cloud of electrons moving at high speed. When the plasma breaks out, the nuclei of the ionized aluminium atoms (protons/neutrons) are 'liberated' from a state of matter and roam free but still stay together. Instead of the atoms of aluminium, you have all the protons and neutrons from all the ions bunched together like one big atom. The cloud of electrons is attracted to it and circles around it forming a ball. For that reason, it requires a massive source of energy to keep the ions in the plasma state, otherwise it will dissipate back into the atoms of aluminium and the free electrons. Of course this will work with any metal, not just aluminium. Before and after a lightning strike, you get the electric field, that wierd hair standing up feeling reported by people near lightning strikes. This is the electric field reaching down for a path to earth. This phenomenon is often referred to as 'Step Leaders'. When it reaches the ground or any good earth, it forms the lightning strike. The arc will quench when the voltage is too low for the arc to continue, but the field will still remain as the energy is still there but too low to sustain an arc of that distance. Now imagine if the strike hit a metal object (power line for instance) and vaporized off a quantity of the metal. You have the ions there to form the 'seed' nuclei. The weakened field is still there after the strike and forms the high energy field required to power the plasma. Perhaps it may take some freak circumstances for the field to be strong enough to sustain a plasma and that may be the reason why occurences are extremely rare.
Some of the properties of ball lightning are quite bizarre and actually match the properties of electricity.
Ball lightning has been known to follow power lines without actually touching them. (at high frequencies, metal objects (waveguides) can reflect electrical energy )
Ball lightning has been known to pass through insulators (like the field occuring around an EHT lead, despite it being an insulator)

Anyway check out this link, especially find the "Tornadoes and Ball lightning" (Elewis3.html) link listed.