One of the most amazing and dangerous natural phenomena is ball lightning. How to behave and what to do when meeting her, you will learn from this article.

What is ball lightning

Surprisingly, modern science finds it difficult to answer this question. Unfortunately, no one has yet been able to analyze this natural phenomenon using precise scientific instruments. All attempts by scientists to recreate it in the laboratory also failed. Despite a lot of historical data and eyewitness accounts, some researchers completely deny the very existence of this phenomenon.

Those lucky enough to survive an encounter with an electric ball give conflicting testimony. They claim to have seen a sphere 10 to 20 cm in diameter, but describe it differently. According to one version, ball lightning is almost transparent, and you can even see the contours of surrounding objects through it. According to another, its color varies from white to red. Someone says that they felt the heat coming from the lightning. Others did not notice any warmth from her, even when in close proximity.

Chinese scientists were lucky to record ball lightning using spectrometers. Although this moment lasted one and a half seconds, the researchers were able to conclude that it differed from ordinary lightning.

Where does ball lightning appear?

How to behave when meeting her, because a fireball can appear anywhere. The circumstances of its formation vary greatly and it is difficult to find a definite pattern. Most people think that lightning can only be encountered during or after a thunderstorm. However, there is a lot of evidence that it appeared in dry, cloudless weather. It is also impossible to predict the location where the electric ball may form. There have been cases when it arose from a voltage network, a tree trunk, and even from the wall of a residential building. Eyewitnesses saw lightning appear on its own, encountered it in open areas and indoors. Also in the literature, cases are described when ball lightning occurred after an ordinary strike.

How to behave

If you are “lucky enough” to encounter a fireball in an open area, you must adhere to the basic rules of behavior in this extreme situation.

Try to slowly move away from the dangerous place to a considerable distance. Don't turn your back on lightning or try to run away from it.
If she is close and moving towards you, freeze, extend your arms forward and hold your breath. After a few seconds or minutes, the ball will go around you and disappear.
Never throw any objects at it, as lightning will explode if it hits anything.

Ball lightning: how to escape if it appears in the house?

This plot is the most scary, as an unprepared person can panic and make a fatal mistake. Remember that the electric sphere reacts to any air movement. Therefore, the most universal advice is to remain still and calm. What else can you do if ball lightning has flown into your apartment?

What to do if it ends up near your face? Blow on the ball and it will fly away.
Do not touch iron objects.
Freeze, do not make sudden movements and do not try to escape.
If there is an entrance to an adjacent room nearby, then try to take refuge in it. But don't turn your back on the lightning and try to move as slowly as possible.
Do not try to drive it away with any object, otherwise you risk causing a large explosion. In this case, you face such serious consequences as cardiac arrest, burns, injuries and loss of consciousness.

How to help the victim

Remember that lightning can cause very serious injury or even death. If you see that a person is wounded by her blow, then urgently take action - move him to another place and do not be afraid, since there will be no charge left in his body. Put him on the floor, wrap him up and call an ambulance. In case of cardiac arrest, give him artificial respiration until doctors arrive. If the person is not seriously injured, put a wet towel on his head, give him two analgin tablets and soothing drops.

How to protect yourself

How to protect yourself from ball lightning? The first step is to take steps to keep you safe during a normal thunderstorm. Remember that in most cases people suffer from electric shock while outdoors or in rural areas.

How to escape from ball lightning in the forest? Don't hide under lonely trees. Try to find a low grove or underbrush. Remember that lightning rarely strikes coniferous trees and birch.
Do not hold metal objects (forks, shovels, guns, fishing rods and umbrellas) above your head.
Don't hide in a haystack or lie down on the ground - it's better to squat down.
If a thunderstorm catches you in your car, stop and do not touch metal objects. Remember to lower your antenna and drive away from tall trees. Pull to the side of the road and avoid entering a gas station.
Remember that quite often a thunderstorm goes against the wind. Ball lightning moves in exactly the same way.
How to behave in the house and should you worry if you are under a roof? Unfortunately, a lightning rod and other devices are not able to help you.
If you are in the steppe, then squat down, try not to rise above the surrounding objects. You can take shelter in a ditch, but leave it as soon as it begins to fill with water.
If you are sailing in a boat, do not stand up under any circumstances. Try to get to the shore as quickly as possible and move away from the water to a safe distance.

Remove your jewelry and set it aside.
Turn off your cell phone. If it works, ball lightning may be attracted to the signal.
How to escape from a thunderstorm if you are at the dacha? Close the windows and chimney. It is not yet known whether glass is a barrier to lightning. However, it has been noticed that it easily seeps into any cracks, sockets or electrical appliances.
If you are at home, close the windows and turn off electrical appliances, and do not touch anything metal. Try to stay away from electrical outlets. Do not make phone calls and turn off all external antennas.

There are more than 400 hypotheses explaining its occurrence

They always appear suddenly. Most scientists involved in their study have never seen the subject of their research with their own eyes. Experts have been arguing for centuries, but have never reproduced this phenomenon in the laboratory. However, no one puts him on a par with a UFO, Chupacabra or poltergeist. We are talking about ball lightning.

Scientists propose to concentrate efforts to search for a signal from extraterrestrial civilizations in the transit zone. Scientists from Germany insist on narrowing the search zone for potentially habitable planets. Rene Hellery and Ralph Pudritz spoke about this in an interview with Astrobiology magazine. According to them, there are currently several methods for searching for exoplanets - planets that orbit other stars. The main one is the so-called transit method, the essence of which is that astronomers observe a decrease in the brightness of a star when a planet passes between an observer from Earth and the star.

DOSSIER ON THE HELL BALL

As a rule, the appearance of ball lightning is associated with strong thunderstorms. The overwhelming number of eyewitnesses describe the object as a ball with a volume of about 1 cubic meter. dm. However, if you analyze the testimonies of airplane pilots, they often mention giant balls. Sometimes eyewitnesses describe a ribbon-like "tail" or even several "tentacles". The surface of the object most often glows evenly, sometimes pulsates, but there are rare observations of dark ball lightning. Occasionally, bright rays are mentioned escaping from the inside of the ball. The color of the surface glow can be very different. It can also change over time.

An encounter with this mysterious phenomenon is very dangerous: many cases of burns and deaths from contact with ball lightning have been recorded.

VERSIONS: GAS DISCHARGE AND PLASMA CLUTCH

Attempts to unravel the phenomenon have been made for a long time.

Back in the 18th century. The outstanding French scientist Dominique François Arago published the first, very detailed work on ball lightning. In it, Arago summarized about 30 observations and thus laid the foundation for the scientific study of the phenomenon.

Of the hundreds of hypotheses, until recently, two looked most likely.

GAS DISCHARGE. In 1955, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa presented a report “On the nature of ball lightning.” In that work, he tries to explain both the very birth of ball lightning and many of its unusual features by the emergence of short-wave electromagnetic oscillations between thunderclouds and the earth's surface. The scientist believed that ball lightning is a gas discharge moving along the power lines of a standing electromagnetic
waves between clouds and ground. It doesn’t sound too clear, but we are dealing with a very complex physical phenomenon. However, even such a genius as Kapitsa could not explain the nature of the short-wave oscillations that provoke the appearance of the “hell ball”. The scientist’s assumption formed the basis of a whole trend that continues to develop to this day.

PLASMA CLUTCH. According to the outstanding scientist Igor Stakhanov (he was called “the physicist who knows everything about ball lightning”), we are dealing with a bunch of ions. Stakhanov's theory agreed well with eyewitness accounts and explained both the shape of lightning and its ability to penetrate holes, re-taking its original form. However, experiments to create a man-made bunch of ions were unsuccessful.

ANTIMATTER. The above hypotheses are quite working, and research continues on their basis. However, it is worth giving examples of more daring flights of thought. Thus, American astronaut Jeffrey Shears Ashby suggested that ball lightning is born during the annihilation (mutual destruction with the release of a huge amount of energy) of antimatter particles that enter the atmosphere from space.

CREATE LIGHTNING

Creating ball lightning in laboratory conditions is a long-standing and not yet fully realized dream of many scientists.

TESLA'S EXPERIMENTS. The first attempts in this direction at the beginning of the 20th century were made by the brilliant Nikola Tesla. Unfortunately, there are no reliable descriptions of either the experiments themselves or the results obtained. In his work notes there is information that, under certain conditions, he managed to “ignite” a gas discharge that looked like a luminous spherical ball. Tesla allegedly could hold these mysterious balls in his hands and even throw them around. However, Tesla’s activities have always been shrouded in mystery and riddles. So it’s impossible to understand where truth and fiction are in the story about hand-held ball lightning.

WHITE CLUTTS. At the US Air Force Academy (Colorado) in 2013, it was possible to create bright balls by exposing a special solution to powerful electrical discharges. Strange objects were able to exist for almost half a second. Scientists have cautiously chosen to call them plasmoids rather than ball lightning. But they expect that the experiment will bring them closer to the solution.

Plasmoid. The bright white ball only existed for half a second.

AN UNEXPECTED EXPLANATION

At the end of the 20th century. A new diagnostic and treatment method has emerged - transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The idea is that by exposing an area of the brain to a focused, strong magnetic field, nerve cells (neurons) can be made to respond as if they had received a signal through the nervous system.

This can cause hallucinations in the form of fiery disks. By shifting the point of influence on the brain, you can make the disk move (as perceived by the test subject). Austrian scientists Joseph Peer and Alexander Kendl suggested that during thunderstorms, powerful magnetic fields may momentarily arise that provoke such visions. Yes, this is a unique set of circumstances, but ball lightning is rarely seen. Scientists point out that there is a greater chance if a person is in a building or an airplane (statistics confirm this). The hypothesis can only explain part of the observations: encounters with lightning that resulted in burns and deaths remain unsolved.

FIVE BRIGHT CASES

Reports of encounters with ball lightning come in constantly. In Ukraine, one of the latest took place last summer: such a “hellish ball” flew into the premises of the Dibrovsky village council in the Kirovograd region. No people were touched, but all the office equipment was burned. In science and popular science literature, a certain set of the most famous collisions between man and ball lightning has been formed.

1638. During an autumn thunderstorm in the village of Widecombe Moor in England, a ball with a diameter of more than 2 m flew into the church. According to eyewitnesses, lightning broke benches, broke windows and filled the church with smoke that smelled of sulfur. In this case, four people died. The “culprits” were soon found - they were declared to be two peasants who allowed themselves to play cards during the sermon.

1753. Georg Richmann, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, conducts research into atmospheric electricity. Suddenly a bluish-orange ball appears and hits the scientist in the face with a crash. The scientist is killed, his assistant is stunned. A small purple spot was found on Richman’s forehead, his jacket was burned, and his shoes were torn. The story is familiar to everyone who studied in Soviet times: not a single physics textbook of that time could do without a description of Richmann’s death.

1944. In Uppsala (Sweden), ball lightning passed through a window glass (a hole with a diameter of about 5 cm was left at the site of penetration). The phenomenon was observed not only by people who were on the spot: the lightning tracking system of the local university also worked.

1978. A group of Soviet climbers stopped for the night in the mountains. A bright yellow ball the size of a tennis ball suddenly appeared in the tightly buttoned tent. It crackled and moved chaotically in space. One climber died from touching the ball. The rest received multiple burns. The case became known after publication in the magazine "Technology - Youth". Now not a single forum for fans of UFOs, the Dyatlov Pass, etc. can do without mentioning that story.

2012. Incredible luck: in Tibet, ball lightning falls into the field of view of spectrometers, with the help of which Chinese scientists studied ordinary lightning. The devices managed to record a glow of 1.64 seconds in length. and obtain detailed spectra. Unlike the spectrum of ordinary lightning (there are nitrogen lines there), the spectrum of ball lightning contains many lines of iron, silicon and calcium - the main chemical elements of the soil. Some of the theories of the origin of ball lightning have received significant arguments in their favor.

Mystery. This is how an encounter with ball lightning was depicted in the 19th century.

Ball lightning is the so-called plasma clots that form during thunderstorms. But the true nature of the formation of these fireballs makes it impossible for scientists to come up with a sound explanation for the unexpected and very frightening effects that typically occur when ball lightning occurs.

The appearance of the "devil"

For a long time, people believed that the mythical deity Zeus was behind the eruption of thunder and lightning. But the most mysterious were the ball lightnings, which appeared extremely rarely and unexpectedly evaporated, leaving only the most terrible stories of their origin.

The first occurrence of ball lightning was attested in the description of one of the most tragic incidents, which happened on October 21, 1638. Ball lightning literally flew through the window into the church in the village of Widecombe Moor at high speed. Eyewitnesses said that a sparkling fireball with a diameter of more than two meters, still incomprehensible to them, somehow knocked out a couple of stones and wooden beams from the church walls.

But the ball didn't stop there. Further, this fireball broke wooden benches in half, and also broke many windows and then filled the room with thick smoke with the smell of some kind of sulfur. But local residents who came to the church for the service were in for another not very pleasant surprise. The ball stopped for a few seconds and then split into two parts, two fireballs. One of which flew out the window, and the other disappeared into the church building.

After the incident, four people died, and about sixty villagers were seriously injured. This incident was called the “coming of the devil,” in which parishioners who played cards during the sermon were blamed.

Horror and fear

Ball lightning is not always spherical in shape; you can also find oval, drop-shaped and rod-shaped ball lightning, the size of which can range from several centimeters to several meters.

Small ball lightning is often observed. In nature, you can find ball lightning red, yellow-red, completely yellow, and in rare cases white or green. Sometimes ball lightning behaves quite intelligently, floating in the air, and sometimes it can suddenly stop without any reason, and then fly forcefully into absolutely any object or person and completely discharge into it.

Many witnesses claim that during the flight the fireball makes a quiet, perceptible sound, similar to hissing. And the appearance of ball lightning is usually accompanied by the smell of ozone or sulfur.

Touching ball lightning is strictly prohibited! Such cases ended in severe burns and even loss of consciousness of the person. Scientists claim that this incomprehensible natural phenomenon can even kill a person with its electric discharge.

In 1753, physics professor Georg Richmann died from ball lightning during an experiment with electricity. This death shocked everyone and made them wonder what ball lightning actually is and why does it even occur in nature?

Witnesses often notice that when they see ball lightning, they feel a sense of horror that, in their opinion, ball lightning inspires them. After meeting this fireball on its way, eyewitnesses experience a feeling of depression and severe headaches, which may not go away for a very long time and no painkillers help.

Scientists' experience

Scientists have come to the conclusion that ball lightning has no similarities with ordinary lightning, since they can be observed in clear, dry weather, including in the winter.

Many theoretical models have appeared that describe the very origin and direct evolution of ball lightning. Today their number is more than four hundred.

The main difficulty with these theories is that all theoretical models are recreated using various experiments, only with some limitations. If scientists begin to equate the artificially created environment with the natural one, then what they get is only a kind of “plasmoid” that lives for a couple of seconds, but nothing more, while natural ball lightning lives for half an hour, while constantly moving, hovering, chasing people around completely for some unknown reason, it also passes through walls and can even explode, so the model and reality are still far from each other.

Assumption

Scientists have found out that in order to find out the truth, it is necessary to catch and also conduct a thorough study of ball lightning directly in an open field; soon the scientists’ wish came true. On July 23, 2012, in the late evening, a fireball was caught using two spectrometers that were installed directly on the Tibetan plateau. Physicists from China who carried out the study were able to record within a few seconds the glow that real ball lightning produced.

Scientists were able to make an incredible discovery: compared to the spectrum of simple lightning familiar to the human eye, which mainly contains lines of ionized nitrogen, the spectrum of natural ball lightning turned out to be completely saturated with veins of iron, as well as calcium and silicon. All of these elements act as the main components of the soil.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that inside ball lightning there is a process of combustion of soil particles that were thrown into the air by a simple thunderstorm strike.

At the same time, Chinese researchers say that the secret of the phenomenon has been revealed prematurely. Let's assume that in the center of the ball lightning itself, soil particles burn. How is the ability of ball lightning to pass through walls or the effect on people through emotions explained? By the way, there have been cases when ball lightning appeared right inside submarines. How then can this be explained?

All this is still shrouded in mystery and even scientists have not been able to explain the phenomenon of ball lightning for many years or even centuries. Will this mystery really remain unsolved by the scientific world?

DOES BALL LIGHTNING EXIST?

Over the long history of the study of ball lightning, the most frequent questions were not questions about how this ball is formed or what its properties are, although these problems are quite complex. But most often the question was asked: “Does ball lightning really exist?” This persistent skepticism is largely due to the difficulties encountered in attempting to experimentally study ball lightning using existing methods, as well as the lack of a theory that would provide a sufficiently complete or even satisfactory explanation of this phenomenon.

Those who deny the existence of ball lightning explain reports about it by optical illusions or erroneous identification of other natural luminous bodies with it. Often cases of the possible appearance of ball lightning are attributed to meteors. In some cases, phenomena described in the literature as ball lightning apparently actually were meteors. However, meteor trails are almost invariably observed as straight lines, while the path characteristic of ball lightning, on the contrary, is most often curved. Further, ball lightning appears, with very rare exceptions, during thunderstorms, while meteors were observed under such conditions only by chance. An ordinary lightning discharge, the direction of the channel of which coincides with the line of sight of the observer, may appear to be a ball. As a result, an optical illusion can occur - the blinding light of the flash remains in the eye as an image, even when the observer changes the direction of the line of sight. This is why it has been suggested that the false image of the ball appears to be moving along a complex trajectory.

In the first detailed discussion of the problem of ball lightning, Arago (Dominique François Jean Arago, a French physicist and astronomer who published the first detailed work on ball lightning in the world scientific literature, summarizing the 30 eyewitness observations he collected, which marked the beginning of the study of this natural phenomenon) touched on this issue. In addition to a number of apparently reliable observations, he noted that an observer seeing the ball descending at a certain angle from the side cannot experience an optical illusion such as the one described above. Arago's arguments apparently seemed quite convincing to Faraday: while rejecting theories according to which ball lightning is an electric discharge, he emphasized that he did not deny the existence of these spheres.

50 years after the publication of Arago's review of the problem of ball lightning, it was again suggested that the image of ordinary lightning moving directly towards the observer was preserved for a long time, and Lord Kelvin in 1888 at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science argued that ball lightning - This is an optical illusion caused by bright light. The fact that many reports cited the same dimensions of ball lightning was attributed to the fact that this illusion was associated with a blind spot in the eye.

A debate between supporters and opponents of these points of view took place at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in 1890. The topic of one of the reports submitted to the Academy was the numerous luminous spheres that appeared in tornadoes and resembled ball lightning. These luminous spheres flew into houses through chimneys, punched round holes in windows, and generally exhibited very unusual properties attributed to ball lightning. After the report, one of the Academy members noted that the amazing properties of ball lightning that were discussed should be taken critically, since observers apparently became victims of optical illusions. In a heated discussion, the observations made by uneducated peasants were declared not worthy of attention, after which the former Emperor of Brazil, a foreign member of the Academy, who was present at the meeting, declared that he, too, had seen ball lightning.

Many reports of natural luminous spheres were explained by the fact that observers mistakenly mistook the lights of St. for ball lightning. Elma. Lights of St. Elma is a relatively commonly observed luminous area formed by a corona discharge at the end of a grounded object, say a pole. They occur when the strength of the atmospheric electric field increases significantly, for example during a thunderstorm. With particularly strong fields, which often occur near mountain peaks, this form of discharge can be observed on any object raised above the ground, and even on the hands and heads of people. However, if we consider the moving spheres to be the lights of St. Elm, then we must assume that the electric field continuously moves from one object, playing the role of a discharge electrode, to another similar object. They tried to explain the message that such a ball was moving over a row of fir trees by saying that a cloud with a field associated with it was passing over these trees. Proponents of this theory considered the lights of St. Elma and all the other balls of light separated from their original attachment point and flew through the air. Since a corona discharge necessarily requires the presence of an electrode, the separation of such balls from a grounded tip indicates that we are talking about some other phenomenon, perhaps a different form of discharge. There are several reports of fireballs that were initially located on points acting as electrodes, and then moved freely in the manner described above.

Other luminous objects have been observed in nature, which were sometimes mistaken for ball lightning. For example, the nightjar is a nocturnal insectivorous bird, to whose feathers luminous rotten insects sometimes stick from the hollow in which it nests, flies in zigzags above the ground, swallowing insects; from some distance it can be mistaken for ball lightning.

The fact that in any given case ball lightning may turn out to be something else is a very strong argument against its existence. A major researcher of high-voltage currents once noted that, for many years observing thunderstorms and photographing them panoramicly, he had never seen ball lightning. In addition, when talking with alleged eyewitnesses of ball lightning, this researcher was always convinced that their observations could have a different and completely reasonable interpretation. The constant resurgence of such arguments emphasizes the importance of detailed and reliable observations of ball lightning.

Most often, the observations on which knowledge about ball lightning is based have been questioned because these mysterious balls were seen only by people who did not have any scientific training. This opinion turned out to be completely wrong. The appearance of ball lightning was observed from a distance of just a few tens of meters by a scientist, an employee of a German laboratory studying atmospheric electricity; lightning was also observed by an employee of the Tokyo Central Meteorological Observatory. Ball lightning was also witnessed by a meteorologist, physicists, a chemist, a paleontologist, the director of a meteorological observatory and several geologists. Among scientists of various specialties, ball lightning was more often seen and astronomers reported on it.

In very rare cases, when ball lightning appeared, an eyewitness was able to obtain photographs. These photographs, as well as other information concerning ball lightning, have often received insufficient attention.

The information collected convinced most meteorologists that their skepticism was unfounded. On the other hand, there is no doubt that many scientists working in other fields take a negative view, both due to intuitive skepticism and the unavailability of data on ball lightning.

Ball lightning. This mysterious natural phenomenon is still very little studied. There are many cases when this clot of crushing energy enters our homes. It penetrates into the room through the slightest cracks, chimneys and even through smooth glass. Ball lightning is a fleeting phenomenon, but sometimes it can be observed within 20 seconds.

Ball lightning is considered a special type of lightning, which is a luminous ball of fire floating through the air (sometimes shaped like a mushroom, drop or pear).

When ball lightning enters an apartment, it behaves differently: it either goes out or “splashes” with a crash. Its sizes vary. The most common lightning is approximately 15 cm in size. But there are cases when its diameter reaches 1 meter or more. When contacting a person, the matter usually ends tragically. But in rare cases this does not happen. Not long ago, such a contact occurred in China: surprisingly, having hit the same person twice, she did not kill him (the incident was shown on TV).

A case of such an encounter with ball lightning is described: in Zimbabwe (Africa), a young woman with such contact escaped with only the loss of her dress and hairstyle. In Pyatigorsk, a roofing worker burned his hands while trying to brush aside a small ball that seemed to be hovering above him. I had to undergo treatment for a long time, because such burns do not heal for a long time. But there are many more cases that end tragically. In the summer there was an incident when a young man who was tending public cattle in a pasture was killed. Ball lightning destroyed him along with his horse.

There have been cases where planes encounter these fireballs. But so far no deaths of the aircraft or crew have been recorded (only minor damage to the skin was noted).

What does ball lightning look like?

Ball lightning comes in different shapes: round, oval, cone-shaped, etc. The color of lightning also has a full range of colors. There are red with different shades, green, orange, white. Some types of lightning have a luminous "tail". What kind of natural phenomenon is this? Scientists say that ball lightning is a plasma clot whose temperature can be 30,000,000 degrees. This is higher than the solar temperature at its center.

Why does this happen, what is the nature of its occurrence. Observations of these “balls” appearing out of nowhere were noted - on a sunny, clear day, mysterious orange balls moved close to the surface, in a place where there were no high-voltage wires or other types of energy sources. Maybe they arise deep in the bowels of our planet, maybe in its faults. In general, this mysterious phenomenon has not yet been studied by anyone. Our scientists know more about the origin of stars than about what happens under their noses from century to century.

Types of ball lightning

Based on eyewitness accounts, there are two main types of ball lightning:

The first is red ball lightning descending from a cloud. When such a heavenly gift touches any object on earth, for example a tree, it explodes. Interesting: ball lightning can be the size of a soccer ball, it can hiss and buzz threateningly.
Another type of ball lightning travels along the earth's surface for a long time and glows with a bright white light. The ball is attracted to good conductors of electricity and can touch anything - the ground, a power line or a person.

Lifetime of ball lightning

Ball lightning lasts from several seconds to several minutes. Why does this happen?

One theory states that the ball is a small copy of a thundercloud. This is how it probably happens. There are always tiny specks of dust in the air. Lightning can impart an electrical charge to dust particles in a specific area of air. Some dust particles are charged positively, others - negatively. In a further light show lasting up to many seconds, millions of small lightning bolts connect oppositely charged dust particles, creating in the air the image of a sparkling fireball - ball lightning.