Ball of Light

[Xylo]

Hi, I didn't see a new member introduction section so I figured I'd just jump into the fray...

I'm a fairly new listener to the Paracast. I'm glad to see that there's a high level of skepticism from "believers" in the UFO phenomenon like myself. I've always thought that there should be a high level of proof/evidence for many of these outrageous claims.

Since this is the "Personal Experiences" forum, I thought I'd intro myself with my first actual sighting of an unexplained object... I will cut and paste from my Nuforc report which is located here.

I saw a ball of light, which quickly disappeared.

As a friend and I were walking across the campus, a ball of light shot past us and then disappeared. The object was only 20-30 feet above ground, and was no larger than 6-12 inches in diameter. The speed of the object was somewhere around 30-50mph. It came from behind, startling my friend and I, then quickly disappeared. It's flight path was an upward arc, kind of a swooping motion, arcing upward after passing us. This object made no sound at all.

There were no electrical storms, no powerlines nearby and no one else directly around us.

My friend and I were college students at the time. I am a former Marine and have had aircraft observation/identification training.

I didn't think much of this incident until I saw video taped evidence of "balls of light" nearby or directly above crop circle incidents. When I saw those video images, it brought back to memory what I had seen. I'm not sure if the object was a spacecraft or some natural anomaly, but it was definitely real.

I always thought that this was a completely unusual sighting..first in that the second that my friend and I saw the light, we were startled, but once it disappeared we casually looked at each other and asked "what was that?" and treated it casually. I'm not sure if this is typical for "ball of light" sightings.

 

[skunkape]

Sounds like ball lightning. Was there a lot of granite in the area or was it near a fault-line?

 

[Xylo]

Sounds like ball lightning. Was there a lot of granite in the area or was it near a fault-line?

I'm not sure how to check for granite...but the sighting occurred in Rockingham County Virginia...which is in a valley, with lots of surrounding mountains.

As for fault lines, I don't think there are, but I can find no corroborating evidence to suggest that there are.

Ball lightning is as good of a presumption as any. Thanks!

 

[skunkape]

I knew someone who had a ball-lightning come through an open door, melt a hole through the screen of his television then hook a 90 degree turn out the top, through the ceiling and into his upstairs neighbor's television!

 

[Xylo]

I've heard of that, and I've heard of ball lightning flying erratically as well. Friends of our family had ball lightning fly into their house as well, through a kitchen fan...it destroyed the stove and burnt up the kitchen pretty badly and then just disappeared.

 

[TClaeys]

I knew someone who had a ball-lightning come through an open door, melt a hole through the screen of his television then hook a 90 degree turn out the top, through the ceiling and into his upstairs neighbor's television!

Hope they had ball lightning insurance.

 

[BrandonD]

The phrase "ball lightning" is another example of taking a mystery and just tacking a name on to it. Calling an object ball lightning doesn't actually explain anything, as no one actually knows what ball lightning is or how it is created.

So what the term ball lightning REALLY means is: "this is a totally natural phenomenon, and even though we can't explain it don't worry, it's definitely not paranormal."

If you're going to go along with such vague terms then I say make your own! I recommend "college campus fireball". I think that name would catch on like crazy.

 

[Xylo]

If you're going to go along with such vague terms then I say make your own! I recommend "college campus fireball". I think that name would catch on like crazy.

Interesting take on this.

Thanks for the reply.