The other night I was talking to a friend. He told me that when he was eight years old, his parents and his self had been out during a lighning storm, and he saw a light the size of a bus heading straight for him! Right as it would have hit it disappeared. at the moment, his parents had looked at it too, but when he mentioned it they were totally oblivious. He was in Kentucky. He said he thought it was Ball Lightning at first, but the size of it didn't quit match the definition.
I remembered a year ago another one of my friends was talking on the phone to me. He was pretty shook up, because he saw something similar to what I just described above in his house. He also was living in Kentucky.
Have you ever experienced anything like this?
What are your theories on it? It has gotten me very curious.
Yes...there are types of "lightning" that do just this... Ball lightning or St.Elmos fire.Its awesome and can scary at the same time..course,I always get spooked I even spook myself.Anyway,here you go....
And it can look really weird,as you will see here.It also can move really fast.
St Elmos Fire..
Grabbed this from the wikki thing for you too ..
Ball lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon, the physical nature of which is still controversial. The term refers to reports of luminous, usually spherical objects which vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes, which last only a fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. Laboratory experiments have produced effects that are visually similar to reports of ball lightning, but it is presently unknown whether these are actually related to any naturally occurring phenomenon.
Scientific data on natural ball lightning is scarce due to its infrequency and unpredictability. The presumption of its existence is based on reported public sightings, and has therefore produced somewhat inconsistent findings. Due to inconsistencies and the lack of reliable data, the true nature of ball lightning is still unknown.[1] Until recently, ball lightning was often regarded as a fantasy or a hoax.[2] Reports of the phenomenon were dismissed due to lack of physical evidence, and were often regarded the same way as UFO sightings.[1] Recently however, the overwhelming number of sightings has caused a renewed interest in studying the possible existence and nature of the phenomenon.
Natural ball lightning appears infrequently and unpredictably, and is therefore rarely (if ever truly) photographed. However, several purported photos and videos exist. Perhaps the most famous story of ball lightning unfolded when 18th-century physicist Georg Wilhelm Richmann installed a lightning rod in his home and was struck in the head - and killed - by a "pale blue ball of fire."[3]
Ive seen it move extremely fast across the hood of a vehicle that was traveling at around 80mph and zip thru trees like a rocketship.I wish I could find better footage for you,but these give you an idea.
Plasma rocks!!
That was some awesome footage there woman, I have never seen it myself but I have friends who live down south that have, and yes it is scary and the shapes that it forms as well, makes you wonder if some of the sighting of, misc people mother therese , Mary have been them that appeared in the sky ?? Yes im sure i just opned a can of worms but you know me I like good debate
I've seen lightning such as this since my youth but had no ideal it was at all unusual, it was just how a big thunderstorm with a lot of lightning worked.
PS- I'm in Kentucky too lol
I also have seen these and they are awesome to watch and sometimes scary as well yet very beautiful. thanks for the videos oceane thoughs are kool...
i have never seen such a thing but would love too..i love to watch lightning and the likes as long as im a distance from it
any theories other than ball lightning? I was thinking it may have been a large concentration of energy from the ley lines in the area... Do you know if that's possible with ley lines?
I dont see why it couldnt be a possibility..after all,many times there are lights seen when crop circles are forming and such,which incidently,are more often than not, found above water and aquifers, and at ley line junctions.I believe that the true circles are formed by sound /resonance ,and since it is energy,it could manifest in the form of light..So I certainly wouldnt discount it.
Here ASH,you might want to take a look at this.
http://www.mara.org.uk/CroxtethBOL.htm
Also,the ley lines are the earth's energy.so Id say not only possible,but probable.
But perhaps not the case in Kentucky..here is a ley line grid..look at its crossing across the US..However,since there is the Karst topogrophy/caprock (which means there is lots of water under that swiss cheeeeese) it could happen for the other reasons I mentioned..
not major ones, but minor lines.... I also wondered if maybe it was a portal... one was inside which is why I didn't consider ball lightning
Wow Oceanne.Those are some sweet videos of the topic.It makes one think of aparitions that people saw hundreds of years ago.
That's wild stuff. I love lighting storms. Although I have never seen much more than your standard plain old lighting
http://www.amasci.com/weird/unusual/bl.html
About Balls of Lightening
http://www.earthlights.org/Kentucky-spook-light.htm
About Spooky Lights
Hey thanks guys,Im glad you liked them..but you're right, Dexter,it certainly wouldnt have been hard to understand why everyone believed they were seeing something"paranormal" or Divine. And I couldnt help wondering,after seeing the first vid,if it wasnt something to that effect that happened when they thought they saw Fatima....
The second link Darkwolfman gave me was EXACTLY what I was talking about. My friend flet just like the other person.
Yes,there are many accounts like it too..ever hear of the train lights and things like that?
There are plenty of theories about when it pretains to ley lines...among them being that the lines conjunct into portals as well as communication and transportation lines etc...
this is what I am referring to.
http://inamidst.com/lights/group/0322
http://www.spiritsociety.org/ghost.php?page=articles&article=leylines1.html
http://www.som.org/5A&S/breathtad.html
http://www.strayreality.com/Lanis_Strayreality/safehouse.htm
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_237.php
I will tell you something tho,in Kentucky where many of this type of activity is reported where there is evidence of high concentrations of Helium 3, or heavy hydrogen.This is present in these areas of high tectonic activity.As you most likely know,the New Madrid faultline runs through Kentucky.Alot of the reports also coincide with seizmic activity.Im sorry,I just dont think Earthlights are really due to anything paranormal.Even the ley lines arent paranormal in my book,even if it is somekind of telepathic highway or whatever...as far as Im concerned,they are all just a natural part of what goes on in the universe and here at home.
And because they always look so errie and such,of course its easy to attribute these activities to something out of this world..but even a ghost isnt paranormal to me..just earth and universal energies at work and manifesting themselves.And that is what makes it so fantastic .
Ok,heres an example of what I am talking about as far as fault line lights and activities..
http://www.ufobc.ca/History/2000/sookehills2004report.htm
http://www.astronomycafe.net/weird/lights/brown1.htm
Persinger and Lafrenière saw UFOs as electromagnetic phenomena arising from the tremendous energy associated with the constantly rising and falling tectonic stress in the Earth's crust, whether or not full-blown earthquakes occurred. They visualised fields of forces operating evenly and quietly over large regions which could become focused at any given time in a few small areas of particular geological resistance or instability such as fault lines, mineral deposits, unyielding rock outcrops, hills, mountains and so on. They likened this to the energies in the atmosphere being equally capable of producing a gentle breeze over a wide area or a localised ferocity like a tornado. "The existence of man upon a thin shell beneath which mammoth forces constantly operate, cannot be over-emphasised," they argued. This was the first outing of what has come to be known as the Tectonic Strain Theory, or TST.
Successive reporting of lights occurred in the seven months preceding the biggest earthquake of the studied period. Regional seismic activity also increased during the times in 1972 and 1976 when most sightings were reported. (The irony of the Yakima case is that the reservation is adjacent to the part of the Cascades Mountains where pilot Kenneth Arnold saw the flight of nine glittering objects in 1947 that initiated the flying saucer era. In fact, Arnold landed his plane at Yakima airfield shortly after his
encounter.)
But it was the outbreak of lights at Hessdalen, a valley 70 miles (112km) south-east of Trondheim in Norway, that really switched on the earth lights.
>From about November 1981, people living in the mineral-rich area began
seeing unexplained lights. These appeared as white and yellow-white spheres, 'bullets' with pointed end downwards and inverted "Christmas tree" shapes.
Strong, localised flashes in the sky were also observed and there were reports of underground rumbling. By the summer of 1983, hundreds of reports of strange lights had been made by the inhabitants of Hessdalen, so Norwegian and Swedish UFO groups formed Project Hessdalen. From 21 January to 26 February 1984, the project continuously monitored the valley using a range of instrumentation, including radar, and succeeded in obtaining photographs of strange lights plus a number of instrumental readings. Such work then continued sporadically over a few years.
Jeroen Kumeling
http://think-aboutit.com/Think/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=129&Itemid=60
I think what occurs in these instances is not due to one thing,but in fact by several.One might be cause by static or releasing energy above a fault or hydrogen.Either way,they are beautiful and we are lucky that things like this happen for us to see.
yes i saw lightning such as this.. I also am a survivor of a lightning strike that hit me directly.. It went in my shoulder and out my finger.. True story.. Hence why i became a hypnotist to help- people with phobias or tragic things..
Ouch that would hurt.Glad you're still with us and have used that experience to help others.
Thought I might explain a little about some probable causes of earth quake lights.There are several theories for this phenomenon, which include piezoelectricity, exoelectron emissions,frictional heating, phosphine gas emissions,sonoluminescence and fluid injection ,otherwise known as electrokinetics.The most recent theory however,suggests that th lights are caused by separation of positive hole charge carriers that turn rocks momentarily into p-type semiconductors . Ive provided a link iin case you might want to look into it more.
http://matse1.mse.uiuc.edu/~tw/sc/prin.html
I like to thank you for opening this thread too,its a great subject and really fun to talk about.
Yeah it hurt more after then during really.. Once i woke up i was in huge pain , my shoulder and my body was shkaing a lot and i thought i was going to die.. I was bleeding a lot from the shoulder and hand..
Oh I bet! Where there peeps around? And what were you doing? Was it normal ground to sky lightning? Or ball that came at you..bet you didnt see it huh?
i saw a huge flash and heard a crack. I was outside on my farm in Michigan..My mom was indoors but she saw a flash and she knew i was outside and came to look for me. i woke up and was on my feet before she got to me. She was scared as much as me..
I have heard of it but in California it rarely rains, lol. When I lived in GA it rained all the time but I didn't want to go out and take a look at the lightning. This is how Dannion Brinkley died initially was from a lightning strike. I have never been to KY, maybe passed through but not during a storm. Do you know if they ever see this in Louisiana since they get so many freak storms? I know I had never even seen sheet lightning until I went to visit relatives in Kansas. I watched out the bedroom window for a long period of time.
I don't think but could be wrong, I know about them but have not done deep research or a long time ago, but scientists don't acknowledge them do they (ley lines)? I have read about the energy pathways that pass through many specific sites we think of as pagan and ley lines but that was so long ago. It is energy meridians of the planet. Man has them as well.
When Tesla built his coils, did any of this type of phenomena appear?
but i have a lovely scar on my shoulder and my pinky finger from it..
Oh,here is an example of lights seen above China right before an earthquake..
Here is the Paulding light.
the last noticeable earthquake in kentucky was in 2005... it was from groundwater
My mum lived in Four Marks, Hampshire England, and she had some amazing encounters with lighting at the old farm she lived on. One of them sounds very much like the one you described. She said for some strange reason it was only around that farm did/has she ever experienced anything like that, could it be something to do with what the ground in the area was made up of, I wonder!
I feel tremors all the time..They record over 200 quakes a year along that faultline.
And dont forget,any activity could produce a side effect as every movement generates energy release .such as lights.Just because we might not feel one,doesnt mean they arent happening.
Also I wanted to ask what year was it when he was eight?
And in what general area?
Here is a link to data that might come in useful since you are researching this.
http://www.uky.edu/KGS/geologichazards/EarthquakeRecording/LLKY_SHZ_KY.2008090300.gif
that recording was taken 9-3 08 in land between the lakes.
This recording was taken just today...
http://www.uky.edu/KGS/geologichazards/EarthquakeRecording/FMKY_SHZ_KY.2008090400.gif
So you see,its a constant thing.
Dont forget the Illinois basin - Ozark dome either.This region covers parts of Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas and stretches from Indianapolis and St. Louis to Memphis.
Fairly frequent earthquakes occur throughout that region too.
Bottom line is the activity in Kentuky is such that it could indeed be the source of some of these occurences.
Any other theories you might like to look closer at?
Yes,Azuredark,its called a tesla lamp.;)
Veela,if you follow a couiple of those links I provided up there,it explains how minerals and such can play their roles in phenomenon that is described.:)

Azuredark,I was just messin when I mentioned the plasma lamp..but in all seriousness,there are plasma balls like in the second vid that occured when he was working on his coils..and incidently there are several instsnces where lightning is triggered by man. I heard lightning struck the Apollo 12 soon after takeoff, and it has been known to strike soon after thermonuclear explosions. We also trigger it by launching rockets carrying spools of wire into thunderstorms. But even so,out of the five types of lightning,really,only the ball lightning would come to mind when it comes to the situation you described.Unless it was light generated another way and not lightning at all.
ArtemisSaeoteeHunter,if your contemplating that the ley lines have anything to do with it,you might go ahead and do some study on Telluric energies and such on your own to help you come to a more satisfactory conclusion,cause Im not really sure what more I can present here to you .And it doesnt seem like anyone else has much imput as to what it could possibly be.
I have seen blue and green lightening when I was a kid...but nevere balls of lightening.
Where were you DW? When you saw this?What time of year ?Any theories as to what it could have been?
well its to my understanding that it is elmo's fire as mentioned earlyer by others and can be quite cool the the suddenly disapearing now thats different cause it dont vanished that fast as it sounds but it could i gues in rare cases. i say tho its elmo's fire it sounds like it and its hello scarey lol.
ok,according to you in our messages, 97 he was 8.It might intrest you to know that there was indeed a seismic swarm that year, and big releases of radon gas..both which can produce the very type of lights which he described.
And he was near the Cumberland gap too,so yes,its a good chance that what he saw that night was a result of this activity.
Btw,you do know about the noble gases dont you? And how they Glow when charged?
I have seen lighting up close from a plane and it is a scary experience but really cool flying along watching lighting shoot across the sky next to you is and experience. I do know that lighting can do a lot of crazy things. If might not have been his time to go cause so he saw it but it didn't kill him cause a lightning strike is hard to survive.
I remind you that the senses can be deceiving.
Maybe it was a lightning ball but because of the emotional shock and of the speed and distance the size was percieved much greater then in reality.
In West Virginia...when I was around 15(21 years ago) during a 95+ temp in the middle of July....and it was right before a lightening storm.
Sounds like Positive charge to me.It can lash out 50 miles or more from the storm itself.
yeah its been know for lightning to hit and travel along the ground before dissapating!!!
I've seen something similar while i was on a vacation in Arkansas visiting a friend
I've seen ball lightning before. It is AMAZINGLY cool....and creepy..and would scare the hell out of a child.
That is probably what your friend experienced.
Couldnt it be a lightning hitting something over and over
Btw excellent videos had never seen anything like that!
This is truly amazing I have seen heat ligtning alot her in SC but some othe the others I haven't witnessed but would love to
I have seen it happen a few times here in NY and is simply amazing. A far as lightning goes a few years back a bolt came down and split two of my pastures poles in half and they were a good 50 feet away from each other , split them both right down the middle. have never seen lightning do that before .