Ball lightning is, you guessed it, lightning in the usual form of a ball or orb (sometimes other closely related shapes) and is quite mysterious. Like the case of U.F.O.s, there are many sightings but many things still have remained unproven. A very small percentage of people claim to have seen ball lightning, perhaps a figure such as 0.66-5%. Usually appearing in thunderstorms (though not always), it tends to have a mind of its own. It can be large or small, come in many colors, hover in the air, zoom along the ground, be repelled or attracted to various objects. The event typically last a second to a full minute. Ball lighting can phase or pass through solid matter harmlessly or it can melt through it or explode on the spot without touching anything. In some reports, ball lightning has fatally injured people. Scientists have re-created similar effects to ball lightning in the lab, solidifying many hypotheses about its nature and origin. Plasma energy, magnetically stimulated hallucinations, vaporized silicon, power surges through certain materials, microwave energy, miniature black holes, aerodynamic vortexes, and more have been implicated in these experimental theories. The main question that remains is: are these simulations as good as the 'real thing', or simply related to it? Below are some classical depictions of ball lightning:
