For centuries, people have reported seeing luminous, spherical orbs during storms — a phenomenon known as “ball lightning”. According to eyewitness reports they last for several seconds, moving through the air before eventually exploding.
But meteorologists have always regarded such reports with suspicion, as they’d never been able to observe the phenomenon themselves. Inconsistencies in public reports led those studying these cases starting to think of them like UFO sightings — merely hallucinations, perhaps caused by electromagnetic effects.
Now, however, following years of attempts to replicate ball lightning in the lab, Chinese researchers have finally recorded it in the field.
After a bolt of lightning hit the ground, a glowing ball about five metres wide rose up and travelled about 15 metres, before disappearing about 1.6 seconds later.
Stunned, the researchers packed up their kit and headed back to their lab, where they discovered that the elements in the ball were the same as those in the local soil — silicon, iron and calcium. They published their results in the journal Physical Review Letters.
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