[extropy-chat] Re: Ball lightning

[Terry W. Colvin]

Terry W. Colvin <colvint at cc.ims.disa.mil>       Voice: [520]538-5392 
U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program      FAX: [520]538-5435 
Air Tasking Orders [Desert Storm I]               DSN: 879-5392
Fort Huachuca (Cochise County), Arizona USA
"No editor ever likes the way a story tastes unless he pees 
in it first." -Mark Twain

You wrote:
> 
> Just in the last week, I investigated a report similar to the telephone event.
> Near Walka, some 300km from here, a woman reported ball lightning in her house
> during a thunder storm.  She said it came in through a CLOSED window, bounced 
> on the carpet and then remained stationary on an extension power point for a
> couple of seconds causing it to burst into flames and emit a couple of bangs. 
> It then rolled up the side of a foam box, melting the surface and burning the 
> hair on the head of a joey (young kangaroo) that was in the box before rolling
> into the kitchen an becoming lost to view.  The woman was at this time more
> concerned with putting out the electrical fire and with the joey.  The ball was
> about 15 cm across. There are several inconsistencies in her story (like the 
> joey having NO burnt hair on its head), but there was certainly a fire within 
> the electrical extension.  As there was undoubtedly a nearby lightning strike 
> on power lines (witnessed by a neighbour) and damage to telephone lines locally,
> (including her own phone line requiring repair) it was perhaps possible that 
> the ball actually started in the electrical extension, with the initial
> flash being seen as a streak through the woman's thick glasses, as it was 
> initially seen out the corner of her eye.  The fire in the extension was
> possibly due to the arcing across dust which was certainly present within it. 
> (During this trip, I broke my cam shaft.  Looks like a "new" engine)
> 
> Worldwide, there is a consistency of reports in thunderstorms, although the 
> Japanese have a surfeit of clear weather sightings.  Perhaps this is
> investigator bias.  I don't understand the theories that attempt to explain 
> ball lightning, so I won't try to explain them.  One Japanese group have
> created sustainable plasma balls (not necessarily formed in the same way
> as ball lightning).  The leading investigator in this group believes they may 
> be related to "true" crop circles (should there be such) and had a close
> association with Terence Meaden (see Schnabel's "Round in Circles"). 
> 
> Cheers, Rob

Please put me on your email list for any reports of Ball Lightning.  I've been 
studying the phenomenon for 23 years now [as of 1995].  My company is doing R&D
in this area.

Best Regards,


Charles Cagle
Chief Technical Officer
Singularity Technologies, Inc,
1640 Oak Grove Road, N.W.
Salem, OR 97304

Ph/Fx 503/362-7781


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
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