A New Explanation for One of the Strangest Occurrences in Nature: Ball Lightning | Hacker News Reader

A New Explanation for One of the Strangest Occurrences in Nature: Ball Lightning

nautil.us

107 pointsdnetesn52 comments

One of these scared the heck out of me as a kid. I had just gone to bed and was staring up at the ceiling and a small ball of intense light with crackling tendrils around it flared in the middle of the room and was gone. I ran out and got my parents, and I was so obviously scared my Dad eventually climbed into the attic above my room and reported a burning smell in the air but couldn't find anything out of place.

There was evidence that Nikolai Tesla not only understood what caused ball lightning but could create it on demand. It is not one of his experiments that have been replicated however and so often it is consigned to the "myth" part of his reputation. An interesting extract on it is here: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/tesla/esp_tesla_20.htm

he did a lot of weather research at his colorado springs lab, which burnt to the ground. so many of his papers and experiments were destroyed in that fire.

Ball lightning is one of my earliest memories as a child. I was in the basement in our farmhouse when it came in through our window during a storm and "popped" next to me. My mother also remembers this experience. I don't remember if the window was open or not (we didn't have air conditioning down there - I think the storm was just starting). No damage. But it freaked us out and we went back upstairs in a hurry.

Im surprised this theory took them so long.

making ball lightening in the kitchen is one of my childhood memories.

light a candle and stick it in the microwave for a few seconds. the tip of the burning candle will spit out ball lightening that will then happily float around the microwave for a few seconds.

be interesting to know if that is the same as what you saw in your basement.

if you dont feel like doing it yourself

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G7lfzA7WzVI

That sounds like burning vaporised wax... Presumably quite different to what is being suggested here.

considering the video uses only a match. definately nothing to do with the wax.

you get an electrical arc inside the flame then it spits out balls of plasma.

if you time it just right so it doesnt hit the sides the plasma can last for quite a while after the microwave is shut off.

pulling a mocrowave to bits and doing it uncontained is still on my todo list.

When I was about 11 I remember sitting in my parent's living room at our computer when a small marble sized ball floated slowly across the room. As it got close to me it electrocuted my right hand with what seemed to be a small lightning bolt shooting off from the main body of it, burning my hand. It freaked me out quite a bit and I still have no good explanation for what happened.

Did zapping you made it disappear?

To be honest I pulled away pretty quickly in pain and when I looked back a few seconds later it was gone. I'd say the whole event lasted for no more than 10 seconds, probably closer to 5.

Minor nit: shocked, not electrocuted, since you're thankfully still with us. :)

Electrocution is death by electric shock (that's the '-cution' part, like execution).

Interesting, I thought it could pertain to injuring as well. OED seems to allow for injuring, but it's probably a more modern use (due to misuse). Thanks for pointing this out!

Microwaves trapped in balls of plasma. Electrons accelerated fast enough to pass through sheet aluminum, but able to slow down and form a ball on the other side. Electrons accelerated to high relativistic speeds, producing nothing more potent than mere microwaves when decelerated.

I am no physicist, but these explanations seem really messed up. I don't think this guy got us any closer to understanding ball lightning.

None of that sounds implausible to me.

• Plasma is opaque to electromagnetic radiation (including microwaves), it could totally be trapped: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/26jxu6/why_is_p...

• Beta radiation (electrons) are known for passing through several millimeters of aluminum (³²P beta radiation penetrates to a depth of 3/8th of an inch or 9.5mm): http://www.alpharubicon.com/basicnbc/RadiationPenetration.ht...

Besides, radiation penetration isn't discrete, it's an exponential falloff; even if only 0.1% makes it through a particular sheet of aluminum, well, one thousandth of a lightning strike is still a serious amount of radiation.

• If you've ever sat in front of a CRT TV or computer monitor, electrons were accelerated to relativistic speeds right at your face in the span of a foot or so, about 1/3 c: https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201011010306...

Maybe 1/3 c doesn't count as "high relativistic" in your book, but clouds are huge compared to CRT monitors, any free electrons would be in much stronger electric fields and would be accelerating over much greater distances.

I don't doubt that lightning launches electrons at high speed. I doubt that those electrons can pass through a metal sheet at high speed and then immediately come to a stop on the other side before travelling the dozen or two feet across the plane and out the other side.

Plus rapidly decelerating electrons produce x-rays.

You didn't read the paper.

"For high atomic number materials, there is a chance of the beta particles loosing energy by producing some x-rays. In water, the x-ray production from a beta particle is quite miniscule."

http://www.alpharubicon.com/basicnbc/RadiationPenetration.ht...

By "high atomic number materials" they mean stuff like lead, 82. Aluminum is 13.

They can't maintain high speed for long. "The charge of the beta particle will continuously cause ionization along the path that it is traveling. Because of this, when a beta particle enters some material, it begins slowing down, and slows down continuously." Same link as above: http://www.alpharubicon.com/basicnbc/RadiationPenetration.ht...

Did you read the paper at all? It's pretty accessible. The main component is ultra high energy microwaves, these are generated by relativistic electrons accelerated beyond the front of the step leader before it hits the ground. When those electrons penetrate through matter they can release microwaves as they decelerate. They can also cause ionization of the air as well. And these phenomena feed off one another. The microwave radiation then gets trapped inside a bubble of plasma as a standing wave. This is a quasi-stable phenomenon because the microwave energy heats the plasma and thus maintains its own confinement.

Interestingly, this model seems to explain the vast majority of observational evidence related to ball lightning, including some of the more bizarre occurrences. It's also testable. The easiest way to test it would be making use of 100GW class microwave emitters, which are just a touch beyond the state of the industry today but should be available soon. And that should make it possible to determine the accuracy of the theory and, if it proves accurate, to further study the properties of ball lightning.

> 100GW class microwave emitters

Those exist, but they just aren't commercially available yet? Dude, pics! That's like an Akira class orbital ion cannon, no?

I thought similarly, and did some searching and found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KALI_(electron_accelerator)

> There is also speculation of using the KALI as an anti-satellite weapon and as a space-based weapon system, although it is unlikely...

"AKIRA!!!"

When I was about 16 I was in our half basement with full size windows at ground level playing SNES. It was mid-morning, and there had just been a light rain, but it was sunny out. I saw something bright out of the corner of my eye and turned just in time to see it hit the answering machine that was sitting on the window sill. There was a fairly loud pop, and it tripped the breaker and shut off my game. The answering machine was fine.

This thread brings up old memories: I, too, am a ball lightning witness. It'd been so long since I'd replayed it in my mind [0] that I'd probably describe it better if I slept on it. (Slow Retrieval == AWS Glacier).

I was around eight or so, and was idle on the sidelines at a practice; American football, iirc, with an open field adjacent to the one we were scrimmaging on. It was after dark, hot and humid, with thunderstorms in the vicinity (aka, Georgia in springtime).

I don't remember if it was concomitant with a thunderclap, but I was looking around (not at the active play) and on the open field a bright, blue-white ball descended into the field maybe 75m from me, appx 75 cm in apparent diameter. When I say "into" I mean it was proximal but not tangent to the field; hovering, as it were, but only for a second. Then it raced off, but seemed to dissappear more quickly than you'd estimate based on the rate of angular velocity wrt my eye—almost as if it evaporated.

And, does anyone else seem puzzled that the observation group is almost completely comprised of young persons? I've read some other accounts of ball lightning since the Internet age, and that seems to be a common attribute. Maybe tweens just stare off into space more/lie awake sleeplessly /etc., but it sure seems strongly correlated (small sample size, admittedly).

Oops, forgot my footnote.

[0] One theory is that the $current state of all of our experienced memories is just a copy of the last time we replayed that memory. Like bootleg tapes, N-generations old.

This caught my attention: "Microwaves also tend to make an audible noise when they encounter a person’s inner ear".

Say what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

> This was accompanied by side effects such as dizziness, headaches, and a pins and needles sensation.

I've felt this sensation in my inner ear, along with hearing pops, twice in my life. Neither involved microwaves, AFAIK.

First, I had a laptop with a power supply that was badly grounded. I would use it on my lap, on a couch that had cushions that would build up a static charge and adhere to me. Every once in a while, touching the metal body of the laptop would run a shock up my body and out the back of my head, and the couch cushion fabric would relax. Sounded and felt just like that.

Second, I've walked in the distant vicinity of a high-power radio antenna before, on a cold day with extremely high humidity—the sort of day that comes before a lightning storm. I felt slight bits of static in the air discharge "through" me repeatedly, heard the pops, and also smelled increasing levels of ozone. I don't think I was anywhere near enough to the antenna tower be getting RF burns, and there was no lightning or thunder yet, so my hypothesis here was that the tower was charging air above the ground, that air was being blown around by the wind, and then the oppositely-charged clouds were sparking against it. It's like I was inside a CRT!

Yep, there were experiments using them to transmit sounds directly into people's heads - successfully, I might add. There's a whole crowd of tinfoily types convinced they're victims of govt harassment via these technologies, look up V2K.

One time I went up to my local mountain lookout to do some night time photography. It was very dark and I was using long exposure.

During one of the photographs a huge white flash occurred. I turned around and couldn't see anything. It made no sense because I was up on a mountain, and the silent lightning appeared to come from above and behind me.

There wasn't even a cloud in the sky in any direction and it wasn't my camera flash because it was during a long exposure and I was looking at the camera. The photo I took came out over exposed even though it was the same length of exposure I had been using all night.

Don't think I will ever know what it was, but I've always suspected that it's probably something in similar to nature to what the article talks about.

It was silent? Could it have been a meteor?

Sure, don't see why not.

I saw one of these a long time ago. While driving through an area where some lighting was happening a blue-ish ball appeared on top of the powerlines that were parallel to the road. The ball was big enough for me to notice it out of the corner of my left eye. It was fast, too. Traveling at at least the same speed I was traveling down the road. It was spooky but I loved it because I love seeing raw electricity. I never knew what it was until today (I'm making the assumption based on my memory).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBlptPM-pWE it was probably something like this, not ball lightning. Just an arc.

That might finally explain an experience I had when I was about 6 years old. My room was on the third floor and one night I heard a loud buzzing sound and my room was illuminated by bright, blue-white light. I couldn't actually see what was happening from my bed but I could tell from the orientation of the shadows in my room and the sound it made that it was traveling down the street past my house.

Completely scared the crap out of me at the time. I thought someone was being abducted by aliens.

I have thought about that for years, but it was not an arc. It was above the powerlines. Whatever it was I can't reproduce it in order to figure out what it was. :)

And you can create one in your microwave with a sliced grape!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTjsRt0Fzo

(I am not sure that this would be the same phenomenon, but it's definitely microwave plasma).

Note - you will likely ruin your microwave doing it if it breaks containment.

You can also do it with a fish bowl and a burned toothpick in a cork - that way you can see the ball like plasma race around the inside. =)

Very nice to read other people's observations! Thank you, everybody.

I saw silvery-white ball lightning from my 7th story window a few years ago. It swooped, turned sharply and touched down maybe 200 meters away. It was a very bright, constant light against a cloudless blue sky in the middle of the day, moving at a constant speed.

The best explanation I have for it is decay products of cosmic rays, resulting in plasma soliton. My estimate of the wattage and energy of its light output would mean it wasn't from a source in our solar system.

I would think that if the source wasn't our sun then events like these would be very easily seen at night, and that my Northern latitude's long dark winters would de-bias opportunities to observe. Meanwhile if the source was our sun, then I would assume observations would correlate with sunspot activity.

Everyone seems to have stories about ball lightning. Where is a video?

PS: The video in the article is unconvincing and probably a firefly.

> Where is a video?

Whatever the plausibility of ball lightning, it is not reasonable to demand video of a rare and unexpected event.

I read somewhere that no major airline crash was captured on film until about 30-40 years ago (NB: exhibition flights and the Hindenburg are not airlines), but we can agree that planes did crash.

Think about 9/11: The World Trade Center must be one of the most photographed and videoed sights in the entire world, yet there are only 2 videos of the first attack on a sunny morning when it was witnessed by thousands of people walking around. There is just one extremely poor video of the Pentagon attack, and this is a building that I assume is brimming with surveillance cameras. There are no videos of the Shanksville crash.

An airplane in trouble is big and noisy and there might be a minute between the time it's noticed until it crashes. Ball lightning, if such a thing exists, is small, initially quiet, unexpected, and last just seconds.

There are a lot more video cameras now than there were 15 years ago.

I feel like hackernews/reddit has a unusually high number of stories like this. I don't buy it. Another one everyone claims to have is sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis is a well documented medical disorder. As a diagnosed narcoleptic, I can assure you it is very real.

It's my understanding that occasional sleep paralysis is actually pretty common. Chronic occurrences are more rare, and would be characterised as a disorder, like the parent comment suggests.

Sleep paralysis is why I go to sleep on my side rather than my back every night.

I no longer fear it since I can consistently awaken myself now, but I'd rather not deal with the annoyance.

I almost exclusively get sleep paralysis laying on my back too. It's hard for me to fall asleep on my back fortunately, but when I do it's a nearly sure-fire way to end up in sleep paralysis. Is there any explanation for why this is the case?

To GP, it's definitely real. I didn't have it until I was around 25. My first time was shocking -- I'd never experienced anything similar. I rarely have any visual hallucinations, sometimes auditory hallucinations, but the main component of sleep paralysis is the breathless, weighed down sensation of desperately wanting to move but being totally unable to do so. My experiences are always accompanied by the extreme urge to get up and protect myself. I even sometimes have my eyes open during sleep paralysis, and I've confirmed with my wife that I can see my surroundings by, after I come to, accurately reporting her movements around the room during an episode.

For me it's only ever happened on my side.

I used to find it happened only when I was lay on my front. But just the other day I had it when I was on my back. I've had it more when I've been extremely tired and finding it hard to sleep.

It's only happened a handful of times in my life that I can recall, but it's really unpleasant. It feels like you are trapped, can't move and have to will yourself free.

I remember back when HN wasn't full of anti-intellectual jerks. Those were good times.

No, it's not that everyone on the sites have stories about ball lightning, or sleep paralysis, rather that everyone who comments with a story is reporting an experience with the subject of the article, ball lightning here, sleep paralysis apparently in another case. Those who don't have stories to tell about the phenomenon, or who have not experienced it, don't comment, there's nothing interesting or useful about saying "Yeah, ball lightning - that reminds me of the time when I didn't see any." Bear in mind there's a huge number of users on HN, and there were only around ten comments relating personal experiences with ball lightning. This is a tiny fraction of a percentage of the community, and similar statistics probably hold true for Reddit.

I've seen ball lightning twice, both during my short stint living in rural Nebraska as a kid. It was correlated with, but not directly underneath, the hyper-energetic thunderstorm systems that are typical for that region. It is really interesting to observe because it doesn't follow the rules you intuitively expect.

The most memorable incident was when it dropped out of the sky directly over a little league baseball game I was playing in. Several dozen people saw that one. It hovered, sizzled, zipped off, and disappeared. They called the game on account of weather.

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