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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 |
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Balls Of Fire Enter Room Through Metal Screens
"Thunderstorms are frequent in the Entebbe Peninsula, Lake Victoria (Uganda). During one of these storms, which usually come at night time, there was a simultaneous flash of lightning and its associated clattering crash of thunder. A second or less later, several balls of brilliant blue light, about 4-6 cm diameter, entered the room through a window on the south side and 'floated' across the room to leave by a window on the east side. My wife and I were already awake (it would have been difficult not to be) and independently exclaimed aloud on what we had just seen."
Both windows were open but had metal screens. The same phenomenon occurred again during the same rainy season.
(Gillett, J.D.; "Balls of Fire," Nature, 299:294, 1982.)
Comment. Ball lightning is fairly rare; repeat performances are virtually unheard of. For the many other varieties of ball lightning, see Section GLB in our Catalog: Lightning, Auroras. More information on this volume is located here.