Editing Ball lightning (section)

=== Other accounts ===
[[File:Ball lightning.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Ball lightning entering via the chimney (1886)]]
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* [[Willy Ley]] discussed a sighting in Paris on 5 July 1852 "for which sworn statements were filed with the [[French Academy of Sciences]]". During a thunderstorm, a tailor living next to [[Church of the Val-de-Grâce]] saw a ball the size of a human head come out of the fireplace. It flew around the room, reentered the fireplace, and exploded in and destroyed the top of the chimney.<ref name="ley196010">{{Cite magazine |last= Ley |first= Willy |date= October 1960 |title= The Moon Worm |url= https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v19n02_1960-12#page/n28/mode/1up |department= For Your Information |magazine= Galaxy Science Fiction |pages= 56–71}}</ref>
* On 30 April 1877 a ball of lightning entered the [[Harmandir Sahib|Golden Temple]] at [[Amritsar]], India, and exited through a side door. Several people observed the ball, and the incident is inscribed on the front wall of Darshani Deori.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.sikhnet.com/news/miracle-saved-panth |title= Miracle saved panth |publisher= Sikhnet.com |date= 2009-12-21 |access-date= 21 January 2014}}</ref>
* On 22 November 1894 an unusually prolonged instance of natural ball lightning occurred in [[Golden, Colorado]], which suggests it could be artificially induced from the atmosphere. The ''Golden Globe'' newspaper reported:

:<blockquote>A beautiful yet strange phenomenon was seen in this city on last Monday night. The wind was high and the air seemed to be full of electricity. In front of, above and around the new Hall of Engineering of the [[Colorado School of Mines|School of Mines]], balls of fire played tag for half an hour, to the wonder and amazement of all who saw the display. In this building is situated the dynamos and electrical apparatus of perhaps the finest electrical plant of its size in the state. There was probably a visiting delegation from the clouds, to the captives of the dynamos on last Monday night, and they certainly had a fine visit and a roystering game of romp.<ref>''Golden Globe'', 24 November 1894.</ref></blockquote>

* On 22 May 1901 in the Kazakh city of [[Oral, Kazakhstan|Uralsk]] in the Russian Empire (now Oral, Kazakhstan), "a dazzlingly brilliant ball of fire" descended gradually from the sky during a thunderstorm, then entered into a house where 21 people had taken refuge, "wreaked havoc with the apartment, broke through the wall into a stove in the adjoining room, smashed the stove-pipe, and carried it off with such violence that it was dashed against the opposite wall, and went out through the broken window". The incident was reported in the ''Bulletin de la [[Société astronomique de France]]'' the following year.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Soubbotine |first1=Mlle. N. de |title=(Météorologie) |journal=Bulletin de la Société astronomique de France |date=1902 |volume=16 |pages=117–118 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112110949614&view=1up&seq=129 |language=fr}}</ref><ref>Mark Stenhoff (1999) ''Ball Lightning: An Unsolved Problem in Atmospheric Physics''. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, p70.</ref>
* In July 1907 ball lightning hit the [[Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse]] in Western Australia. Lighthouse-keeper Patrick Baird was in the tower at the time and was knocked unconscious. His daughter Ethel recorded the event.<ref>{{cite loa|WA|Cape%20Naturaliste|The Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse|access-date= 13 July 2009}}</ref>
* Ley discussed another incident in [[Bischofswerda]], Germany. On 29 April 1925 multiple witnesses saw a silent ball land near a mailman, move along a telephone wire to a school, knock back a teacher using a telephone, and bore perfectly round coin-sized holes through a glass pane. {{convert|700|ft|m|abbr=in|order=flip}} of wire was melted, several telephone poles were damaged, an underground cable was broken, and several workmen were thrown to the ground but unhurt.{{r|ley196010}} 
* An early reference to ball lightning appears in a children's book set in the 19th century by [[Laura Ingalls Wilder]].<ref>{{cite book|first= Laura Ingalls|last= Wilder|author-link= Laura Ingalls Wilder|title= On the Banks of Plum Creek|publisher= Harper Trophy|year= 1937|isbn= 978-0-06-440005-3|url= https://archive.org/details/byshoresofsilver02wild}}</ref> The books are considered historical fiction, but the author always insisted they were descriptive of actual events in her life. In Wilder's description, three separate balls of lightning appear during a winter blizzard near a cast-iron stove in the family's kitchen. They are described as appearing near the stovepipe, then rolling across the floor, only to disappear as the mother ([[Caroline Ingalls]]) chases them with a willow-branch broom.<ref name="GetlinePlaying">{{cite news|last= Getline|first= Meryl|url= https://www.usatoday.com/travel/columnist/getline/2005-10-17-ask-the-captain_x.htm|title= Playing with (St. Elmo's) fire|work= USA Today|date= 17 October 2005}}</ref>
* Pilots in World War II (1939–1945) described an unusual phenomenon for which ball lightning has been suggested as an explanation. The pilots saw small balls of light moving in strange trajectories, which came to be referred to as [[foo fighter]]s.{{r|ley196010}}
* Submariners in World War II gave the most frequent and consistent accounts of small ball lightning in the confined submarine atmosphere. There are repeated accounts of inadvertent production of floating explosive balls when the battery banks were switched in or out, especially if misswitched or when the highly inductive electrical motors were misconnected or disconnected. An attempt later to duplicate those balls with a surplus submarine battery resulted in several failures and an explosion.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.peter-thomson.co.uk/tornado/fusion/Ball_lightning_and_the_charge_sheath_vortex.html |title= Ball lightning – and the charge sheath vortex |publisher= Peter-thomson.co.uk |access-date= 13 July 2009 |archive-date= 8 April 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130408052051/http://www.peter-thomson.co.uk/tornado/fusion/Ball_lightning_and_the_charge_sheath_vortex.html |url-status= dead }}</ref>
* On 6 August 1994 a ball lightning is believed to have gone through a closed window in [[Uppsala]], Sweden, leaving a circular hole about {{convert|5|cm|in|0|abbr=in}} in diameter. The hole in the window was found days later, and it was thought it could have happened during the thunderstorm;  a lightning strike was witnessed by residents in the area, and was recorded by a lightning strike tracking system at the Division for Electricity and Lightning Research at [[Uppsala University]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.hvi.uu.se/Lightning/blixtar/Klotblixt.html|language= sv|publisher= Uppsala University |title= Ett fenomen som gäckar vetenskapen |first= Anders |last= Larsson |date= 23 April 2002 |access-date= 19 November 2007}}</ref>
* In 2005 an incident occurred in Guernsey, where an apparent lightning-strike on an aircraft led to multiple fireball sightings on the ground.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://guernseypress.com/news/2005/03/05/lightning-strike-wrecked-my-tv/ |title=Lightning strike wrecked my TV |date=5 March 2005 |work=[[Guernsey Press]]}}</ref> 
* On 10 July 2011, during a powerful thunderstorm, a ball of light with a {{convert|2|m|adj=on|spell=in}} tail went through a window to the control room of local emergency services in [[Liberec]] in the Czech Republic. The ball bounced from window to ceiling, then to the floor and back, where it rolled along it for two or three meters. It then dropped to the floor and disappeared. The staff present in the control room were frightened, smelled electricity and burned cables and thought something was burning. The computers froze (not crashed) and all communications equipment was knocked out for the night until restored by technicians. Aside from damages caused by disrupting equipment, only one computer monitor was destroyed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://zpravy.idnes.cz/byla-to-koule-s-dvoumetrovym-ocasem-popisuje-dispecerka-kulovy-blesk-1ed-/krimi.aspx?c=A110711_163825_liberec-zpravy_alh |title= Byla to koule s dvoumetrovým ocasem, popisuje dispečerka kulový blesk |language= cs |publisher= Zpravy.idnes.cz | date= 11 July 2011|access-date= 21 January 2014}}</ref>
* On 15 December 2014, [[Loganair Flight 6780]] in Scotland experienced ball lightning in the forward cabin just before lightning struck the aircraft nose, the plane fell several thousand feet and came within 1,100 feet of the North Sea before making an emergency landing at [[Aberdeen Airport]].<ref>
{{cite web
|url= http://avherald.com/h?article=4813ed2d&opt=1024
|title= The Aviation Herald|website= avherald.com
}}</ref>
* On June 24, 2022, in a massive thunderstorm front, a retired lady at Liebenberg, Lower Austria, saw blinding cloud-to-ground lightning to the northeast and within 1 min spotted a yellowish "burning object with licking flames" that followed a wavy trajectory along the local road about 15 m over ground and was lost from sight after 2 seconds. It occurred at the end of a local thunderstorm cell. The [[European Severe Storms Laboratory]] recorded this as ball lightning.<ref name="ESWD">{{cite web |title=European Severe Weather Database |url=https://eswd.eu/cgi-bin/eswd.cgi |website=European Severe Weather Database |publisher=European Severe Storms Laboratory}}</ref>