Re: Teslas Ball Lightning

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: David Speck <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

My ball lightning experience happened in the mid summer of 1964 or 65.

It was early afternoon, and the western sky turned almost black with 
an approaching thunderstorm.  My 9 year old brother and I were 
pressed to the screen of your second floor back porch, watching the 
intense and frequent lightning approach.  The rain had not started 
yet.  Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit the lightning rod on the 
middle steeple of SS. Peter and Paul's Church, which was about 200 
feet north of our vantage point.  There was a simultaneous crack of 
very loud thunder.

Just after the lightning strike, we both saw a medium bright blue 
white ball, the color of a mercury vapor light but not as bright, 
emerge from under the eaves of the steeple.  The ball "rolled" down 
the steeply pitched roof of the church and fell to the ground.  The 
landing was hidden behind trees and buildings.  I don't recall much 
wind at the time, and the path seemed pretty straight.

I'd estimate the size of the object was somewhere between basketball 
and small beach ball size.  The speed of travel was a bit faster than 
a toy balloon falling the same distance, but slower than a dropped 
basketball would have moved,  I do not recall any great acceleration 
as the object moved.  We didn't hear any special noise as the object 
disappeared.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to go the landing 
site after the storm to see if there were any burn marks in the ground.

As my brother and I were both very interested in lightning and 
weather at the time, it was a very exciting event.  Regrettably, I've 
never seen it again, though the stepped lightning that preceded a 
very intense storm a few years later was probably more 
impressive.  The sequence of progressive cloud to cloud bolts passing 
from the western horizon overhead to the eastern horizon must have 
lasted for 12 to 15 seconds.  Even sci fi movies have never provided 
such a fascinating and simultaneously terrifying spectacle.

Dave