Scientific theories and experiments have failed to convince a physicist what's behind the mysterious natural phenomenon of ball lightning. Emeritus Professor Bob Crompton of the Australian National University gave a presentation in Canberra this week on the latest scientific investigations into ball lightning, something once considered as likely as UFOs. "I don't believe there is any satisfactory explanation so far," says Crompton for these small bright lights that appear after a lightning strike. "[The theories] don't satisfy me and I don't think they satisfy anyone who looks at the evidence objectively." Crompton, an expert in atomic and molecular physics and electrical discharges in gases, has been interested in the science behind ball lightning for decades. He's collected 30-40 Australian sightings over a period of about 10 years, with the help of Australian meteorological services. "In those early days I would have had enough to fill two inches of manila folders," he says. Crompton says ball lightning is a bright light, anywhere in size from a golf ball to larger than a football. It hovers above the ground, moving slowly, able to pass through walls, until it vanishes minutes later.Eyewitness reportCrompton says he first became interested in ball lightning after an eyewitness report in the Canberra Times in 1970. The eyewitness was the wife of a colleague and someone who Crompton thinks a reliable witness. The woman awoke in the early hours one morning after a fierce lightning strike on a power pole near her home, he says. As she went to check on her children she saw a sparkling golden ball of light sitting on the lintel above the doorway to the bathroom.

"It was a ball of about the size of an orange or a bit bigger," says Crompton. "Then in due course it just disappeared. The whole thing lasted about 5-10 seconds."Scientific explanationsCrompton says two main theories have been put forward to explain ball lightning. One theory, based on the physics of electrical discharges, says lightning strikes and travels slowly through conductive channels in the ground.

View: Full Article | Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Just as scientests have created plama balls that mimic cells inside their labratory, maybe lightning in some shape or fashion gives birth to bioplasmic life forms. Ya never know..

Someone tell me please why because it was a wife of a colleague that it make it a more reliable witness than a so called ordinary person. Does that mean that he wouldn't have studied it???

I was wondering the same thing. I guess that out of twenty people or so that was in that folder their could not have been a trustable person. This is another thing that is wrong with scientests. They choose who is reliable and who is not. I have learned to not trust some scientests. Closed minds never open any doors.

I read in the New Scientist some time ago, that their is a theory that ball-lightling is a form of black-hole, but other than that, I know little about the phenomon. (i'd love to see some though)

Mystery

While Crompton says this second theory is the most likely explanation for ball lightning, he says it doesn't really explain how ball lightning gets into a house.

After reading both theories, I chuckled reading this.

on reading some other sites about something called orbs and watching some nasa film where [what appears like ufo`s ]balls of light appearing after lightening ,i`m wondering if the two are related [just a thought," before all the guffaw`s reach me" ]yours ,, coolpolitealex.

I had similiar thought after reading this part of the article:

The first theory does, he says, but doesn't explain other cases such as a report in the journal Nature by a UK scientist travelling in a plane during a thunderstorm over New York City in the 1960s.
Professor Roger Jennison of the University of Kent, reported seeing a glowing sphere emerge from one wall, drift down the aisle a metre above the floor, and disappear out of the rear of the aircraft.
"The aircraft one I find the hardest to explain," says Crompton. "[But] I think this is fascinating even though I can't explain it."