Caught on Camera After 400 Years: The Enduring Riddle of Ball Lightning
For more than four centuries, people caught in thunderstorms have described the same impossible thing: a glowing sphere, often the size of a grapefruit, drifting silently through the air. It hovers, wanders, sometimes hisses — and then vanishes without a trace or explodes with a bang. Witnesses include farmers, sailors, physicists and airline pilots. The phenomenon has a name, ball lightning, but for most of scientific history it had no proof.
One of the earliest detailed accounts comes from Widecombe-in-the-Moor, England. On October 21, 1638, during a violent storm, witnesses reported a great ball of fire tearing through the village church, smashing pews and windows. Four people died and around sixty were injured. The villagers blamed the devil; modern researchers read the old report as a classic description of ball lightning.
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