Hi everyone, I'm a longtime lurker and new member. I have two really good stories you might enjoy, one happened to me, and another happened to a friend. I should say upfront I am a skeptic, I don't believe in the paranormal (No offence to anybody who does believe, I respect everyone's opinions!). But I have a passing interest in this sort of thing after an incident with ball lightning that happened to me in the 1990s. I'm 100% certain my incident can be explained scientifically. But it made me realise there are some things in this world we are yet to fully understand.
My ball lightning experience: I was a university student in mid 1990s. It was winter (I think worth noting the cold weather), and around 6pm/7pm. It was dark and I was watching TV. Our house was old (this is relevant because it had some gaps in the floor and window frames). Our TV was on a table in the corner of the room. I should describe the two walls that formed this corner: One wall featured a built-in bookcase that lined the entire wall, including some of the space behind the TV. The other wall had large windows. So if you can imagine, the left side of the TV has bookshelves behind it, and the right side of the TV has a large window behind it. Also, on our bookcase behind the TV was an orange plastic lamp from the 70s....
Anyway, at some point around 6pm or so I remember noticing a bright light was shining immediately behind the TV, sitting low and partially obscured. The light was inside our living room. I thought it was our 70s plastic lamp, and I remember thinking "somebody has turned that lamp on, I wonder why?". Being a lazy university student, I did nothing about the lamp apparently being on, and just accepted it... This light stayed there for what must have been another hour or so - I remember leaving the living room to get some dinner & feeding our dog, etc. And when I returned, the light was still there. I continued watching TV. It has hard to explain, but I was merely noticing the light out of the corner of my eye & didn't think too much about it. By this time it was probably 7pm/8pm. Suddenly I noticed the light was brighter and it had risen up in the air - it definitely was not our lamp! It was a ball of light that was hovering over 1 meter above the ground. It was perfectly round, and smaller than a basketball but bigger than a grapefruit. It looked the same luminescence as a light globe, that yellow/orange colour. It was silent. All this happened very quickly. I remember a sudden huge amount of fear as I focused all my attention on the object - realising what I was looking at, it was very scary. But at the same time, I had no doubt I was looking at something electrical. Maybe because of the similarity to the brightness of a light bulb?
We had a relative visiting from overseas. She was in the living room with me when this happened, she witnessed it too. I said something along the lines of "WTF is that???" and our relative said the same! We were pretty speechless. But then something dramatic happened - the ball started moving in a perfect straight line across the room. It moved a distance of maybe 1.5 metres, and then it suddenly popped and disappeared. When it had started moving, I felt incredibly scared because this thing looked dangerous. I yelled something like "Don't touch it!" or "Don't go near it!", just before it popped. It did not make any noise when it popped either. And interestingly, a line of light was traced in a perfect circle when it popped. This gave me the strong impression it was hollow inside, like a bubble popping. At all times I was sure I was witnessing something electrical (this wasn't reassuring though, because it seemed to be dangerous).
We had made such a commotion, my father came into the room to see what had happened. I investigated the back of the TV set, thinking maybe it had something been an electrical discharge from the rear grill of the TV set (ludicrous idea I know). While looking at the back of the TV, and searching for possible explanations, I noticed how the window frames in the wall were old and had small gaps in some places. I tried to remember seeing anything earlier that evening that might explain it, but I just remember seeing the light starting small behind the TV and thinking it was the lamp. I was left with the impression that the ball of light had grown in size over 2 or 3 hours. Who knows how long it had been there? My theory is it must have entered via the window, small in size, and started to grow.
The next day, I asked our relative about what happened. She said "Oh my god that was the scariest thing I have ever seen, I don't want to talk about it anymore". And that was that, she refused to talk about it. Early 2000s, I searched the internet and found many cases when ball lightning enters into a house via the window. Can you imagine how relieved I felt to read that!!!! Also, there is a famous photo of alleged ball lightning that does indeed look similar to what I witnessed - the photo is taken in Japan near a train level crossing.
EDIT: this is the photo that reminds me of what I saw:
My ball lightning experience: I was a university student in mid 1990s. It was winter (I think worth noting the cold weather), and around 6pm/7pm. It was dark and I was watching TV. Our house was old (this is relevant because it had some gaps in the floor and window frames). Our TV was on a table in the corner of the room. I should describe the two walls that formed this corner: One wall featured a built-in bookcase that lined the entire wall, including some of the space behind the TV. The other wall had large windows. So if you can imagine, the left side of the TV has bookshelves behind it, and the right side of the TV has a large window behind it. Also, on our bookcase behind the TV was an orange plastic lamp from the 70s....
Anyway, at some point around 6pm or so I remember noticing a bright light was shining immediately behind the TV, sitting low and partially obscured. The light was inside our living room. I thought it was our 70s plastic lamp, and I remember thinking "somebody has turned that lamp on, I wonder why?". Being a lazy university student, I did nothing about the lamp apparently being on, and just accepted it... This light stayed there for what must have been another hour or so - I remember leaving the living room to get some dinner & feeding our dog, etc. And when I returned, the light was still there. I continued watching TV. It has hard to explain, but I was merely noticing the light out of the corner of my eye & didn't think too much about it. By this time it was probably 7pm/8pm. Suddenly I noticed the light was brighter and it had risen up in the air - it definitely was not our lamp! It was a ball of light that was hovering over 1 meter above the ground. It was perfectly round, and smaller than a basketball but bigger than a grapefruit. It looked the same luminescence as a light globe, that yellow/orange colour. It was silent. All this happened very quickly. I remember a sudden huge amount of fear as I focused all my attention on the object - realising what I was looking at, it was very scary. But at the same time, I had no doubt I was looking at something electrical. Maybe because of the similarity to the brightness of a light bulb?
We had a relative visiting from overseas. She was in the living room with me when this happened, she witnessed it too. I said something along the lines of "WTF is that???" and our relative said the same! We were pretty speechless. But then something dramatic happened - the ball started moving in a perfect straight line across the room. It moved a distance of maybe 1.5 metres, and then it suddenly popped and disappeared. When it had started moving, I felt incredibly scared because this thing looked dangerous. I yelled something like "Don't touch it!" or "Don't go near it!", just before it popped. It did not make any noise when it popped either. And interestingly, a line of light was traced in a perfect circle when it popped. This gave me the strong impression it was hollow inside, like a bubble popping. At all times I was sure I was witnessing something electrical (this wasn't reassuring though, because it seemed to be dangerous).
We had made such a commotion, my father came into the room to see what had happened. I investigated the back of the TV set, thinking maybe it had something been an electrical discharge from the rear grill of the TV set (ludicrous idea I know). While looking at the back of the TV, and searching for possible explanations, I noticed how the window frames in the wall were old and had small gaps in some places. I tried to remember seeing anything earlier that evening that might explain it, but I just remember seeing the light starting small behind the TV and thinking it was the lamp. I was left with the impression that the ball of light had grown in size over 2 or 3 hours. Who knows how long it had been there? My theory is it must have entered via the window, small in size, and started to grow.
The next day, I asked our relative about what happened. She said "Oh my god that was the scariest thing I have ever seen, I don't want to talk about it anymore". And that was that, she refused to talk about it. Early 2000s, I searched the internet and found many cases when ball lightning enters into a house via the window. Can you imagine how relieved I felt to read that!!!! Also, there is a famous photo of alleged ball lightning that does indeed look similar to what I witnessed - the photo is taken in Japan near a train level crossing.
EDIT: this is the photo that reminds me of what I saw:
