Have you seen or know of someone who has seen a "ball of lightning"?

"Ball lightning is a well-documented phenomenon in the sense that it has been seen and consistently described by people in all walks of life since the time of the ancient Greeks. There is no accepted theory for what causes it. It does not necessarily consist of plasma; for example, ball lightning could be the result of a chemiluminescent process. The literature abounds with speculations on the physics of the ball lightning."

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CC3F9-66E4-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&pageNumber=1&catID=3

Not only that, but sometimes when people say they've seen ghosts they also say they've seen balls of light drifting around. Are they the same thing?

during a storm. A ball of lightning floating between my house and the one next door. Very eery. No ghosts, though. I wasn't sure what I'd seen until I later read a description of ball lightning and kew that's what it was.

The lightning went in my window and out my parents window in the next room. It looked like a greenish blue glowing ball. It went very fast. Just a fraction of a second and it was gone.

...who works in a food manufacturing plant in mid-Michigan told me that he was 20 feet from an MCC (Motor Control Center, a centralized bank of motor starters and fuses that you find in factories) when it spit out a blue ball.

Not sure if it qualifies as 'ball lightning' since it was indoors. I believe him, though, since he's not someone who makes things up. (Now, that other maintenance guy who they fired, on the other hand...)

when I was about 10. Scared the shit out of her.

a ball of light come out of the sky and 'roll' down the hill across the street from his house. When it reached the bottom it shot back up into the sky.

I used to lay in bed with my head by the window watching storms when we had them. I saw it hit the ground right outside my window. A big blue ball of lightning. I will never forget that sight.

of one of her aunts who was sitting by a window during a thunderstorm. A ball of lightning came in and landed on her lap. This was in the days of long dresses, and my aunt flipped her skirts and the ball rolled away on the floor.

I was reading a bio about Tesla and it seems he had a pet fireball that he kept in a wooden box and would bring it out to show his buddies, like Mark Twain.

My grandparents lived on west 3rd Street. At 7am one summer morning they were having coffee in the kitchen and it was storming. A bolt of lightning (according to Grandma) hit the 60' TV antenna - travelled to the TV in the living room - jumped down the hallway into the kitchen (turning corners!)- zapped the stove - rolled around on the floor for about 3 seconds - then whizzed between them and knocked out the refrigerator - then exited the house through a wall exhaust fan. All those appliances were destroyed. Evidently it didnt have a taste for humans. Sounds like a Spielberg movie scene.

A lighting strike on a telephone pole outside our home (when I was 2), not only exploded the pole causing splinters to embed themselves in the walls of our home (I have photos somewhere of that) but a "ball" lightning traveled down the wire and into our house, apparently rolling across the floor before discharging into a drain pipe in the kitchen. My entire family tells me the story so I believe them, plus we have the photos of the damage done outside to the pole, the side of the house, and the burn marks on the interior wall.

that looked like it was heading for the large window in his den. After he hit the deck, it was gone.

lightening hit a cabin that I was sitting in, and the ball went right through the room. It knocked me off the couch I was sitting on and onto the floor. It looked blue.

when the cockpit door was opened..and it went down the isle of the plane..in the 70's...it was cool...

but in the cockpit during a lightning storm ..it is real neat..the windshield gets red veins all over it sometimes..from static..they move around..real cool!!

fly

Let's all have a science party!

Lightning struck the television antenna on the high point of the roof. Accompanied by the strike and immediate deafening thunder a ball of lightning a pure white light 8-12 inches in diameter came out of the electrical outlet over the kitchen counter and came directly toward my brother and I who were sitting on the living room floor. At the same time, the television which was not on began shaking and actually moved a couple of inches toward us as burning sparks came out of the antenna connection area on the back of the tv.

I was shocked by the phenomena and just dumbly observed because I was very interested in electricity and weather at the time. I did duck as the ball lightning came by. I was about ten years old. My younger brother was terrified and hit the deck. My grandfather rushed into the room and said the attic was on fire (adjacent to where the outside tv antennna had been struck) He was concerned about my brother. He couldn't understand why he was down on the floor covering his head because he didn't see the ball lightning.

The ball lightning as it had moved, seemed to remain equidistant from the ceiling, floor, and walls as it passed by us very closely. It made a precise 90 degree turn over ourselves and then as it got to the end of the living room made another 90 degree turn out through the front screen door and took off.

All this took place in just a few moments. Smoke continued to emit from the television but it didn't seem to be on fire. We drew buckets of water and manned the hose and ladder to put the fire on the roof outside. Hazardous activity in a thunderstorm. My grandfather said "don't worry, lightning never strikes twice in the same place." I understand that this is not true but the intense cloud to ground lightning did move on with the thunderstorm and the fire was put out.

on his way to or from Spain (I forget now). They were flying through a thunder storm and the captain tells the passengers not to worry, that getting hit by lightning was a million to one chance. Sure enough a ball of lightning rolled down the ceiling of the cabin. He comes back on to say getting hit a second time was a billion to one chance. And of course, it happened again.

Witnesses include Laura Ingalls Wilder ("Little House on the Prairie") and WWII bomber pilots, who called the glowing balls following their planes "foo fighters".