Abstract
There are more people who have seen ball lightning then one would think. It’s not so rare at all. During the last two years, I have been talking about my favorite hobby to most of my friends and acquaintances, and I was surprised to find out just how many have seen such objects. The count now stands at 12, and I hope to be able to add more soon. So let’s have a look at some examples. These accounts will explain what ball lightning looks like much better than I could. We start with a case associated with the most enigmatic circumstances, because it took place in a modern all-metal plane.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A more recent example of multiple “flashballs” can be found here: http://foudre.chasseurs-orages.com/viewtopic.php?t=6313&highlight=
- 2.
Many images on the web alleged to show St. Elmo’s fire on cockpit windows are actually discharges on the surface of the window and not a corona discharge.
- 3.
The blue color is due to excited nitrogen molecules in the air.
Reference
Stenhoff, M. (1999) Ball Lightning. An Unsolved Problem in Atmospheric Physics. Kluver Academic/Plenum Publishers
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boerner, H. (2019). Ball Lightning: Observers’ Tales. In: Ball Lightning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20783-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20783-0_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-20782-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-20783-0
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)