This might be an explanation for ball lightning, but I'm pretty sure it can't be the explanation. I saw ball lightning once. Got caught in a thunderstorm at 12

This might be an explanation for ball lightning, but I'm pretty sure it can't be the explanation. I saw ball lightning once. Got caught in a thunderstorm at 12,000 feet in the Sierras -- well above timberline -- and watched the lightning striking around me while I hid under a boulder. I was essentially in the centre of the thunderhead; things got pretty wild. At one point I saw two or three lighting balls (I thought they were maybe 1-2 feet in diameter, although estimating distance in such an environment and which such unfamiliar sights is probably a lost cause), and one thing in the distance which looked like a bobbling string of pearls. The nearest window would have been about 20 miles away, so that can't be the only explanation.