Ball Lightning, an account

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GLB-048       A FIRE-BALL

Hunneman, Mary E. ; Science, 86:244, September 10, 1937

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp The electrical phenomenon know as a "fire-ball" is rather a rare occurrence. Therefore one that I saw at Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, at 5 p.m. on August 10 may be worthy of record. I was seated on a second story porch enclosed with glass watching the storm. A radio aerial extends from a distant tree to a point on the side of the house some distance from the porch. Coincident with a crash of thunder, a fire-ball appeared. I cannot say that it followed the wire or came from the sky. It just came out of space and seemed to move directly toward the window and then fell as though to enter the cellar of the house. It was a round, bronze, glistening ball with gleaming rays shooting from the top and sides; by its beauty and brilliance reminding one of an ornament at the top of a Christmas tree. Such was my fleeting sight of a fire-ball. Probably at the same instant, all electrical fuses in the house blew out with unusual violence.

-from Strange Phenomena: A Sourcebook of Unusual Natural Phenomena, compiled by William R. Corliss, 1973