Jun 27, 2025 06:29 PM
https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/the-u...nt-explain
EXCERPTS: . . . Although floating balls of light like those that could pass through Jennison’s aircraft haven’t yet been recreated in the lab, scientists continue to speculate on how they might form without relying on plasmas. For instance, in 2014, there were reports of ball lightning being caught on video by scientists at Northwestern Normal University in Lanzhou, China.
They were studying lightning during a thunderstorm in Qinghai and observed a ball of light form and travel about 20m (65ft) in 1.5 seconds. A spectrograph also identified the ball’s main components to be iron, silicon and calcium.
This unexpected observation chimed with one theory hypothesised by researchers in New Zealand, in 2000, which proposed that the glowing ball resulted from a lightning strike on the ground that vaporised grains of minerals (since all of those elements can be found in soil). “There are lots of theories as to what they are, from mini black holes to antimatter,” says physicist Dr Stephen Hughes, an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia.
He examined the evidence for green fireballs and ball lightning in a Proceedings of the Royal Society paper published in 2010, which detailed multiple eyewitness sightings over Brisbane and the Gold Coast a few years earlier.
“Ball lightning is definitely some kind of electrical phenomenon,” says Hughes. “People report hissing [and] sizzling sounds, which we associate with electricity. But its mechanism isn’t fully understood.” The mystery is understandable since many eyewitness accounts are contradictory or simply baffling, Hughes adds.
For example, in 1974, during a thunderstorm, Philip Bagnall, the network director of the British Meteor Society, awoke to find an orange ball of light at the foot of his bed. When he reached out, he could feel heat radiating from about 10cm (4in) away.
While some reports describe shocks or partial paralysis upon contact with ball lightning, Bagnall experienced nothing after clapping his hands on it. The sphere then passed through his bedroom ceiling “like a Hollywood ghost.”
“Ball lightning has travelled down an aircraft [according to Jennison] and not caused any burning, although it could still be hot,” says Hughes. “Similar to how you can put your hand in an oven when it’s 230°C (446°F) and your hand doesn’t get burned as long as you don’t touch the metal.”
While details differ, there’s something many ball lightning accounts have in common: the phenomenon is seen in and around aircraft. For instance, in November 1944, during World War II, members of the US 415th Night Fighter Squadron reported seeing “8–10 bright orange lights off the left wing… flying through the air at high speed” north of Strasbourg.
At the time, there was a popular American comic strip called Smokey Stover about fire-fighters where the character Smokey was often referred to as a foolish ‘foo’ (fire) fighter. This led to the lights being called “foo fighters” by one of the crew.
This name for UFOs caught on and was used by Japanese, German and Allied pilots too when they filed similar reports of strange lights in the sky.
These ‘foo fighter’ lights could be red, orange or green, appear solo or in groups, and sometimes in formation. They accompanied aircraft flying at several hundred miles an hour, didn’t show up on radar and could outmanoeuvre any plane that tried to follow them – similar descriptions to many UFO sightings today.
“Some of the UFO reports talk about objects accelerating extremely fast, at impossible rates of acceleration. Fighter aircraft can’t stop and change direction that fast, but electrical phenomena can,” says Hughes. “Electrons are very light and the electromagnetic force is so strong you get this insane acceleration. In just over 1cm (less than 0.5in), electrons can accelerate to half the speed of light.”
In 2024, scientists at the University of California, the University of Arizona and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, published their theory on the origin of ‘foo fighters’: plasmas in the thermosphere.
[...] Be it plasmas, lightning vaporising minerals on the ground, or extraterrestrials, all current theories about the glowing balls of light remain exactly that – theories. ... Like Sasquatch, it can be faked too. A 2020 video of ‘ball lightning’ travelling above railway tracks went viral on Twitter (now X) and is still doing the rounds today, even though its Russian creator admitted he was testing visual effects.
Science, meanwhile, continues to unravel the cause of the glowing orbs and use the properties of plasma. In fact, a number of classified US research projects are now pivoting to research plasma... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: . . . Although floating balls of light like those that could pass through Jennison’s aircraft haven’t yet been recreated in the lab, scientists continue to speculate on how they might form without relying on plasmas. For instance, in 2014, there were reports of ball lightning being caught on video by scientists at Northwestern Normal University in Lanzhou, China.
They were studying lightning during a thunderstorm in Qinghai and observed a ball of light form and travel about 20m (65ft) in 1.5 seconds. A spectrograph also identified the ball’s main components to be iron, silicon and calcium.
This unexpected observation chimed with one theory hypothesised by researchers in New Zealand, in 2000, which proposed that the glowing ball resulted from a lightning strike on the ground that vaporised grains of minerals (since all of those elements can be found in soil). “There are lots of theories as to what they are, from mini black holes to antimatter,” says physicist Dr Stephen Hughes, an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia.
He examined the evidence for green fireballs and ball lightning in a Proceedings of the Royal Society paper published in 2010, which detailed multiple eyewitness sightings over Brisbane and the Gold Coast a few years earlier.
“Ball lightning is definitely some kind of electrical phenomenon,” says Hughes. “People report hissing [and] sizzling sounds, which we associate with electricity. But its mechanism isn’t fully understood.” The mystery is understandable since many eyewitness accounts are contradictory or simply baffling, Hughes adds.
For example, in 1974, during a thunderstorm, Philip Bagnall, the network director of the British Meteor Society, awoke to find an orange ball of light at the foot of his bed. When he reached out, he could feel heat radiating from about 10cm (4in) away.
While some reports describe shocks or partial paralysis upon contact with ball lightning, Bagnall experienced nothing after clapping his hands on it. The sphere then passed through his bedroom ceiling “like a Hollywood ghost.”
“Ball lightning has travelled down an aircraft [according to Jennison] and not caused any burning, although it could still be hot,” says Hughes. “Similar to how you can put your hand in an oven when it’s 230°C (446°F) and your hand doesn’t get burned as long as you don’t touch the metal.”
While details differ, there’s something many ball lightning accounts have in common: the phenomenon is seen in and around aircraft. For instance, in November 1944, during World War II, members of the US 415th Night Fighter Squadron reported seeing “8–10 bright orange lights off the left wing… flying through the air at high speed” north of Strasbourg.
At the time, there was a popular American comic strip called Smokey Stover about fire-fighters where the character Smokey was often referred to as a foolish ‘foo’ (fire) fighter. This led to the lights being called “foo fighters” by one of the crew.
This name for UFOs caught on and was used by Japanese, German and Allied pilots too when they filed similar reports of strange lights in the sky.
These ‘foo fighter’ lights could be red, orange or green, appear solo or in groups, and sometimes in formation. They accompanied aircraft flying at several hundred miles an hour, didn’t show up on radar and could outmanoeuvre any plane that tried to follow them – similar descriptions to many UFO sightings today.
“Some of the UFO reports talk about objects accelerating extremely fast, at impossible rates of acceleration. Fighter aircraft can’t stop and change direction that fast, but electrical phenomena can,” says Hughes. “Electrons are very light and the electromagnetic force is so strong you get this insane acceleration. In just over 1cm (less than 0.5in), electrons can accelerate to half the speed of light.”
In 2024, scientists at the University of California, the University of Arizona and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, published their theory on the origin of ‘foo fighters’: plasmas in the thermosphere.
[...] Be it plasmas, lightning vaporising minerals on the ground, or extraterrestrials, all current theories about the glowing balls of light remain exactly that – theories. ... Like Sasquatch, it can be faked too. A 2020 video of ‘ball lightning’ travelling above railway tracks went viral on Twitter (now X) and is still doing the rounds today, even though its Russian creator admitted he was testing visual effects.
Science, meanwhile, continues to unravel the cause of the glowing orbs and use the properties of plasma. In fact, a number of classified US research projects are now pivoting to research plasma... (MORE - missing details)
