On Sun, 02 Jul 2000, you wrote:
> I've read of ball lightning (also known as "earth lights") being reported in
> certain areas of Norway and also in the Himalayas on a fairly regular basis.
> Sporadic reports also come from other places.
Ball lightning was a relatively common phenomenon when I lived in south
central Nebraska. I saw it a few times when I lived there. To me, it is
clearly a natural phenomenon and a curiousity more than anything.
In my experience, it was always associated with the same types of
energetic weather patterns; there was a fairly apparent correlation
between ball lightning and certain types of electrical storms. If I had
to guess, I would say it is a localized manifestation of really large
scale electromagnetic phenomena that occur when electrical storms take on
a particular conformation.
The weirdest part is that they can apparently pass through many types of
materials as though they weren't there, which strongly suggests a
non-chemical phenomenon.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:33:55 MDT