_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |__ __ _| | | | (_) __ _| |__ | |_ _ __ (_)_ __ __ _ | '_ \ / _` | | | | | |/ _` | '_ \| __| '_ \| | '_ \ / _` | | |_) | (_| | | | | | | (_| | | | | |_| | | | | | | | (_| | |_.__/ \__,_|_|_| |_|_|\__, |_| |_|\__|_| |_|_|_| |_|\__, | |___/ |___/ _ _ _ | |_| |__ ___ ___ _ __(_) ___ ___ | __| '_ \ / _ \/ _ \| '__| |/ _ \/ __| | |_| | | | __/ (_) | | | | __/\__ \ \__|_| |_|\___|\___/|_| |_|\___||___/ ____ . . ___/ . \____/ \____/ . ____/ \ . . \ / \ ______ --- ___ _ _ _ __ _ \ / ..\ _________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / / ..\ - --- - - - -- \___\_ | .. | -------- ___ _ _ _ __ _ _ / | ... |____ _ _ _ _ _ \ ....../ _________ ----- - - -- - - - \______/ -- - -- ----- The phenomena of the mysterious Ball Lighting is still unexplained and puzzling scientists the world over. For many years science disregarded ball lightning as a fairytale and psuedoscience. If you are unfamiliar with this phenomenon: Ball Lightning is a spherical, globular ball of fuzzy "lightning" that floats and moves around for a considerable amount of time. They can move straight through walls, windows and metal and will keep their cosistency. They can be anywhere between a few centimeters to meters in diameter and they have been reported all around the world. In the past decades it has become clear that ball lightning is a very real phenomena and many studies have been conducted investigating them. Many laboratory experiments have been done to recreate the ball lightning to some degree, including one with a microwave which you can do yourself! (see below). But giving similar results doesn't mean it is the real deal...it is unknown if these laboratory creations resemble the real ball lightning. We simply don't know what is going on...we just know they exist: There is a considerable amount of collective eye witness reports and photo- graphic evidence. Here are some theories concerning the origins of ball lightning: ANTIMATTER METEOR An hypothesized speculation that comets or meteoroids exist that are made out of antimatter instead of normal matter. So occasionally these metereoids hit the earths atmosphere and become ball lightning. More information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_comet MICROSCOPIC BLACK HOLES A theory that ball lightning is a supertiny primeordial microscopic black hole. As they pass through the earth they appear as the balllightning. Mario Rabinowitz of Stanford University wrote a paper on the subject you can read here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/astroph/0212251.pdf TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION Ball lightning seems to be very similar to certain hallucinations ex- perienced by people who have epileptical seizures in the occipital lobe. These seizures can be triggered by the force of a lightning strike: its intense flash and magnetic field burst could excite the neurons in the brain. This is however questionable as ball lightning has been photographed and filmed. Also, when it occurs it is witnessed by everyone. That would mean these people are experiencing a "collective hallucination" of something that is behaving the same in the mind of all observers. PROJECT CONDIGN: BUYANT PLASMA HYPOTHESIS A recently declassified secret study by the British Defence Intelligence on UFO's "concluded" that the existence of them as such is indisputable, but that their origin is not extraterrestrial but most feasably "supernormal" weather/atmospheric phenomena that are not yet understood. One of these is "Buyant Plasma Formation" which creates ball lightning effects through some kind of plamsic energy field whatever that means. It even goes as far claiming these Byant Plasma formations can induce livelike hallucinations of close encounters, akin to the transcranial magnetic stimulation theory. You can read the Project Condign report here: http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/condscan.htm BALL LIGHTNING EXPERIMENT IN YOUR OWN KITCHEN! BALL LIGHTNING EXPERIMENT IN YOUR OWN KITCHEN! BALL LIGHTNING EXPERIMENT IN YOUR OWN KITCHEN! dissclaimer: I am not responsible if you burn down your house or create interdimensional portals or f*ck up the time space continuum. if you do this experiment - its at your own risk. What you need: -------------- 1 knife 1 grape 1 glass 1 microwave oven cut the upper top from the grape and make a vertical incision through the grape but leave the bottom part together, like this...we used a green grape but you can ofcourse use any color you want: grape is cut as follows: ____ /____\ | incision ____ _ _ _ _ _ cut / \ ____ __ | __ | | | | | | | | | | | | | ||| | \____/ \____/ \_______/ <- leave bottom part intact. Now place the grape under a glass in the microwave: ____ / \ / \ / \ / . . \ / |||| \ /_____\__/_____\ ______________________________ And turn on the microwave and watch the genesis of a ball lightning! Ofcourse we really don't know if this actuall ball lightning, what we do know is that you just created a plasma ball...which kind of looks like it.