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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, bu

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.

AceyMan 10y ago
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).
- AceyMan 10y ago
  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.

AceyMan 10y ago

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).

AceyMan 10y ago
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.