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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.

From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982. © 1982-2000 William R. Corliss

Science Frontiers Sourcebook Project Reviewed in:

Quotes

  • "Before opening the book, I set certain standards that a volume which treads into dangerous grounds grounds like this must meet. The author scrupulously met, or even exceeded those standards. Each phenomenon is exhaustively documented, with references to scientific journals [..] and extensive quotations" -- "Book Review: The moon and planets: a catalog of astronomical anomalies", The Sourcebook Project, 1985., Corliss, W. R., Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada>, Vol. 81, no. 1 (1987), p. 24., 02/1987