A glowing sphere drifts through a thunderstorm and vanishes. Centuries of witnesses, no accepted explanation.
BALL LIGHTNING ENGRAVING · LOUIS POYET · PUBLIC DOMAIN
The known landscape
Witnesses across centuries describe the same thing: a glowing sphere, sometimes the size of a grapefruit, drifting silently through the air during a thunderstorm before vanishing or exploding. It moves at walking pace, sometimes hovering, sometimes drifting through a room. Then, in a moment, it is simply gone, leaving nothing but the account of whoever happened to be watching.
Thousands of eyewitness accounts share strikingly consistent details — color, size, duration, a faint hissing sound. Researchers have produced short-lived glowing plasma balls in the lab that mimic some reported features.
The edge
No laboratory analogue has reproduced the full duration, mobility, and energy reported in the field, and no single mechanism explains every account. It is possible more than one distinct phenomenon is being described under one name.
Contemplative inquiry
Is ball lightning one phenomenon or several conflated by folk description? Why does it appear to pass through glass and walls in some credible reports?