Just what are they? They only happen during electrical storms. And in most cases seem to be benevolent to people. Unlike bolts of lightning they are unaffected by electrical conductors.

On 16 June a KG97 tanker aircraft was on a routine refuelling mission, when it hit clouds at 18,000feet. The pilot saw a “yellow-white ball of light” the size of a large beach ball, silently entered through the wind screen. It passed between his and the co-pilots seats, down the cabin walkway, passing the engineer and navigator as it headed towards the back of the plane.

A few moments later they heard the voice of the boom operator, who was at the back of the aircraft. The fiery ball had travelled through the cargo compartment out onto the right wing, and then vanished into the dark clouds.

“It was about the size of a grapefruit and yellow in colour, similar in hue to sodium flame, though it did not dazzle my eyes.” This is part of a description a young Reverend, John Henry Lehn gave in 1921 after the first of two experiences of ball lightning.

Reverend Lehn was in his bathroom, during a thunder storm, when in from the meshed open window came a ball of lightning, not affecting the mesh at all. After rotating around his legs several times, it leaped up into the sink, melting the chain to the plug before vanishing down the plug-hole. Two weeks later the same exact thing occurred, even down to once again melting the chain of the by now replaced rubber plug.

There have been many accounts of ball lightning entering houses without harming the buildings inhabitants in any way. These can range considerably in size, from around 1/8inch to around football size. In fact some act with the control and finesse you would expect from some form of science book alien probe. Which prompts another confusing aspect of these cases. Was it the peoples minds playing tricks on them? Many scientists write ball lightning off as pure hallucination or some form of optical illusion. Maybe this is caused by a flash of lightning itself, leaving behind an after-image on their retina. A Canadian scientist, Edward Argyll subscribes to this theory. He states that most ball lightning cases last between 2-10 seconds, which is how long an after-image lasts for. Also this could explain the enigma of how they are able to pass through metal and glass objects without being effected. But how would this explain the Reverends chain?

Many off the descriptions reported show an almost intelligent or at least a benevolent regard for humans which they do not show for other forms of life. But the question is why? Are they in some way related to a race of intelligent beings? Or is it something to do with our electrical discharge from our bodies? Could it even be that these balls of energy are some form of thought-form?

Vincent Gaddis put forward a theory relating to this so called benevolent aspect of ball lightning in the late nineteen-sixties, calling them “socially minded lightning balls”, although this has been mocked ever since, it does illuminate a very bewildering aspect of many of theses experiences.

If we remember for a moment the Reverend Lehn and his experience. The ball rotating around his legs before disappearing down the plug hole. And what about the explosive repercussions a couple of children saw after one of them tried kicking a lightning ball. While they were both completely unharmed, several of the cattle in the barn they where playing in were killed, even though they where more distant than the children themselves. Curiouser and curiouser!

But just as with Edward Argyll’s theory, Gaddis’s theory has many cases that contradict its fundamental basis. Two experienced climbers were climbing up the highest peak in Argyllshire when a thunderstorm started. Not the best of places to be in a thunderstorm, on the best of days, you generally tend to get rather wet. But this would turn out to be the least of their worries.

One of them spotted a globe the size and colour of an orange, bouncing up the mountain at quite a fast pace. There was a blinding flash, followed by a loud cracking noise. They were both knocked unconscious. On waking the first man found his climbing companion had been struck by the ball of lightning, suffering a purple spot on his head surrounded by a larger ring. He also found a mark on his heel that turned out to be a 1 inch deep hole, burnt to a crisp.

If we view ball lightning as an extension of lightning or in some way related to electrical storms, as evidence seems to suggest, folklore may hold a piece of the answer. It is claimed that if you are sleeping during a thunder storm, you can not be hit by lightning. Although very superficial and very hard if not impossible to prove, putting these to the side for a few moments, you could theorize that this could have some indication that the different brain waves, and low expenditure of electrical discharge while sleeping, could have some affect on where the ball lightning turns to. Some of the cases also seem to indicate that if your discharge is high, such as say when rock climbing it could have a greater draw to you. But who really knows?

There are at present only two men in the world that claim they can actually create ball lightning in the lab, so to speak. Robert Golka can and has, created balls of electricity.

There are many reports of old submarine engineers who told of how they would sometimes see glowing balls of light hovering over the vast stores of batteries they had.

By using just 28 of these submarine batteries, Robert Golka creates small balls of electricity. The spheres emit from a moving metal arm, positively charged, rubbing past a negatively charged strip of metal standing out of a shallow tank of water to hold the globes in there place. This is basically how lightning bolts are created, by putting large amounts of pressure on conflictingly charged ice particles.

Unsurprisingly the earth lights phenomenon, claimed to precede earthquakes and other seismic activity, seem to bare a striking similarity to our ball lightning phenomena. Earth-lights just as ball lightning are described as balls of light. However they do not seem to be related to electrical storms but rather earth crust movement and the energy created by the tectonic stress of two plates moving on the fault-lines. This has become known as Tectonic Strain theory.

The earth lights theory of tectonic strain, is usually related to the majority of today’s UFO sightings however Paul Devereux thinks that this could also be related to what he referred to as “strange lightning”. He and Andrew York studied a large amount of material concerning “meteorological Anomalies” of all kinds. They found that all, most often occurred around areas with fault-lines.

Paul Devereux believes that there is some form of both atmospheric and seismic chain reaction which creates many of the unexplained sightings in or from the sky.

So may be as Devereux suggests earth lights and ball lightning are interchangeable but react differently in different situations according to the different electrical landscapes of cities and the countryside. Maybe this taken into consideration with weather and seismic activity could dictate how we perceive the lights?

Whatever the truth of these light experiences, whether they are simply afterglow’s on the retina, or hallucinations, misinterpretations, alien ships the list goes on, we are only just beginning to understand these experiences.