Consequences of ball lightning. Ball lightning is an unsolved mystery of nature. Overview of Artificial Reproduction Approaches

In the mid-eighteenth century, Russian physicist Georg Richmann invented a device for studying electricity. As soon as the thunderstorm began, the scientist and the engraver headed outside to make observations. Suddenly, a bluish-orange ball flew out of the device and hit Richman right in the forehead with a terrible roar. The physicist died on the spot. The engraver escaped with stunning and minor bruises. The scientist's clothes were singed, and a small dark spot was found on his forehead. Nowadays, the existence of a phenomenon ball lightning Numerous photographs of eyewitnesses, as well as videos, practically confirm this. But until recently, only a few specialists among researchers believed in the reality of a natural disaster. The rest explained her appearance as hallucinations and optical illusions, allowing ufologists to make their own incredible guesses.

Howball lightning occurs

Until 2010, this phenomenon was in the same area of ​​the unknown as big Foot with aliens, often associated with the latter. Ball lightning no longer has any desire to scare scientists. Research by Austrian specialists led to the fact that luminous balls were classified as hallucinations. The scorched earth and marks on the trees were attributed to ordinary lightning.

However, two years later, while studying ordinary lightning, Chinese scientists encountered a mysterious phenomenon. Using two spectrometers, they recorded one and a half seconds of glow and the spectra of ball lightning. It turned out that the spectrum of the mysterious balls of light consists of iron, silicon and calcium, which are part of the soil.

Experts studying this elusive phenomenon are of the opinion that ball lightning is a plasma clot. Thanks to magnetic field On Earth, an object retains its shape for some time. The phenomenon occurs the second lightning strikes the ground.

All this does not explain the fact that in the laboratory it was never possible to obtain a long-living plasmoid. But eyewitnesses say that they saw ball lightning for minutes and even hours. Luminous objects enter houses through windows and simply seep through the glass. They run circles around the apartment and fly away. In other cases, homes burn to the ground.

A dangerous and attractive phenomenon forces one to build the most amazing theories. Some believe that this is intelligent plasmoid life trying to communicate with us by burning patterns into trees and fields. This makes some sense. Sometimes the behavior of a luminous ball looks quite natural. The illusion is created that it is acting with a specific purpose. One way or another, the question of what ball lightning is, myth or reality, remains open.

Placesthe appearance of ball lightning

According to eyewitnesses, ball lightning appears in the most unusual places. Psychics classify the areas where this phenomenon is most common as areas with paranormal activity.

We bring to the attention of readers several places where eyewitnesses observed ball lightning.

1. Medveditskaya ridge. Located in the Volgograd region on the border with Saratov. The slope of crazy lightning attracts a large number of tourists and researchers of unusual phenomena. In particular, the group of Cosmopoisk, a socio-scientific association, systematically explored the strange place. It was headed by Vadim Chernobrov, a leading Russian expert in the field of Bigfoot and flying saucers. Ball lightning appears here not only during a thunderstorm, but also in normal weather. The mountain literally attracts them in large numbers.
2. On ships. There are several accounts of ball lightning forming over ships. In the mid-eighteenth century, the ship Catherine and Marie suffered from its action. The ship was moving in sight of the coast of Florida when a luminous ball suddenly appeared. It broke the mast into thousands of pieces and caused significant damage to parts of the ship.
3. In the house. Many eyewitnesses talk about how ball lightning, whether myth or reality, seeps through walls and flies into open windows.
4. On airplanes Observations of the phenomenon also occur. Shortly after World War II, a passenger plane en route to Cairo felt a blow to its hull. One of the passengers was lucky to notice a glowing orange-yellow ball that flew out from under the fuselage. Thirty centimeters from the side, the object exploded and left behind a bright three-meter jet.

Whatwhat to do in case of ball lightning at home

Since the phenomenon is so dangerous, it is necessary to know how to behave when confronted with it. If ball lightning has flown into your apartment, follow these recommendations.

1. Don't run. Trying to quickly leave the danger zone, a person creates a flow of air. The glowing ball will follow you.
2. Try to move away from the path of ball lightning slowly. Do not touch it or try to throw objects at it. Such actions will provoke an explosion.
3. If a person has suffered from the effects of ball lightning, provide fresh air flow. Cover him with a blanket and call an ambulance.
4. If you suddenly forget what to do if ball lightning occurs at home, at least remember that this phenomenon requires the same behavior as an angry dog. Don't make sudden movements and try to move away.

Remember that although photographs of eyewitnesses help to understand the phenomenon of ball lightning, you should not be a hero and risk getting up close. Modern technologies allow you to capture such a phenomenon at a safe distance.

Where does ball lightning come from and what is it? Scientists have been asking themselves this question for many decades in a row, and so far there is no clear answer. A stable plasma ball resulting from a powerful high-frequency discharge. Another hypothesis is antimatter micrometeorites.

...A barrier with a spherical surface can arise between matter and antimatter. Powerful gamma radiation will inflate this ball from the inside, and prevent the penetration of matter to the incoming antimatter, and then we will see a glowing pulsating ball that will hover above the Earth. This point of view seems to have been confirmed. Two English scientists methodically examined the sky using gamma radiation detectors. And registered four times abnormally high level gamma radiation in the expected energy region.

How is ball lightning formed?

How many antimatter meteorites are needed to provide the frequency with which ball lightning is observed? It turned out that for this, only one hundred billionth of the total amount of meteorite matter falling on the Earth is enough. This is the result of this unexpected work. Of course, the scientists’ explanation is far from final and requires verification. But does it have anything to do with ball lightning?

No! - another scientist answers and declares that ball lightning does not exist at all. That glowing ball that we see is just an illusion of our vision. In his laboratory, he used flash lamps to simulate lightning flashes with the same frequency with which they usually occur during a thunderstorm, and everyone present was surprised to “see” strange luminous balls flying smoothly through the air...

There are many hypotheses, but they have one thing in common, a common approach. Ball lightning is considered as a separate, isolated something that lives independently.

At the end of the century before last, the French scientist Gaston Plante and the Russian scientist N.A. Gezehus proposed and developed the fundamental idea that ball lightning is a system that is energetically powered by an external source. They believed that the luminous ball was associated with clouds - an invisible column of electrified air. But they could not develop and substantiate this hypothesis then, in the century before last, and it disappeared under a pile of others, in which ball lightning was considered as a separate mysterious object. And now ideas that were ahead of their time come to life on a new basis.

What does ball lightning look like? Like that. This photo was probably taken by accident. Thunderstorm, blinding branches of lightning stretching towards the Earth. And the ball rapidly flying down. A jerk, an instant stop, the ball rushes about, then again a jerk down towards the Earth, a stop again, a chaotic fast movement to the sides... Here comes the Earth. And a powerful explosion - a discharge. It is clearly visible in the photo. A unique photograph, one of a kind - the flight of ball lightning towards the Earth from a cloud.

But near the Earth, ball lightning may not explode immediately. A small ball quite often likes to travel low at first, along the surface, and here its movement is also restless. Swift jerks to the sides, a flash, then a smooth, quiet flight, again a flash and throwing... But the speed of the Earth is much less than when flying from the black sky. Now the flashes of ball lightning are almost invisible. During the time between them, the ball barely has time to travel half of its radius. And the flashes merge together into one flicker with a frequency of 10 to 100 hertz.

Here ball lightning descends to the Earth itself and, without touching it, bounces off something invisible, like an athlete from a trampoline. Having jumped up, the ball lightning descends again and again bounces off the trampoline layer. So the fireball jumps over the Earth, striking the imagination of everyone who manages to see it. Now, finding himself at the bridge above the river, he moves along them, like the fairy-tale Kolobok running away from his grandparents. Kolobok runs along the walkway and, as if afraid of falling into the water and drowning, moves not straight, but along the curved walkways, following their turns. Kolobok runs, humming his favorite song for some reason in a whisper: “I left my grandfather, I left my grandmother...”, and in the distance only “sh-sh-sh” can be heard, and eyewitnesses vouch only for the fact that they were able to hear the hissing sound of Kolobok - ball lightning.

Kolobok is modern, he is a radio amateur and not only sings his song, but also broadcasts it on the radio on long waves. Turn on the receiver, and in the range of about a thousand to 10 thousand meters you will hear the same hissing call signs... “I am Kolobok...” with the same acoustic frequency of 10-100 hertz, which can be heard directly by the ear.

A strong gust of wind blew our electric Kolobok off the bridge, and it flew across the river and field and ended up in the courtyard of a wooden house. Seeing a barrel of water, he climbed into it and... spread over the water. Now he is not Kolobok, but a pancake, but he is not the one who is fried, but the one who fries, or rather, cooks. The water in the barrel began to heat up and boiled. Having completed your work, evaporated all the water. The bun again curled up into a ball and flew across the yard, flying through the window into the hut. I flew past an electric light bulb - it flashed brightly and immediately burned out. Spinning around in the room, he flew up to the window and, having melted a small hole in the glass, slipped out and flew into the forest. There he froze for a moment near a large tree.” The masquerade is over.

A long electric spark jumps out of the ball lightning and rushes to the nearest electrically conductive surface - the wet bark of a nearby tree. A powerful explosion deafens everything around. A formidable force has awakened in Kolobok. The faintly glowing ball lightning turned into a powerful linear lightning that split the trunk of the century-old, and reminded people of the unbridled forces of nature raging during a thunderstorm.

Ball lightning is evidence of our very poor knowledge of such a seemingly ordinary and already studied phenomenon as electricity. None of the previously put forward hypotheses has yet explained all of its quirks. What is proposed in this article may not even be a hypothesis, but only an attempt to describe the phenomenon in a physical way, without resorting to exotic things like antimatter. The first and main assumption: ball lightning is a discharge of ordinary lightning that has not reached the Earth. More precisely: ball and linear lightning are one process, but in two different modes - fast and slow.

When switching from a slow mode to a fast one, the process becomes explosive - ball lightning turns into linear lightning. The reverse transition of linear lightning to ball lightning is also possible; In some mysterious, or perhaps random way, this transition was accomplished by the talented physicist Richman, a contemporary and friend of Lomonosov. He paid for his luck with his life: the ball lightning he received killed its creator.

Ball lightning and the invisible atmospheric charge path connecting it to the cloud are in a special “elma” state. Elma, unlike plasma - low-temperature electrified air - is stable, cools and spreads very slowly. This is explained by the properties of the boundary layer between the Elma and ordinary air. Here the charges exist in the form of negative ions, bulky and inactive. Calculations show that the elms spread out in as much as 6.5 minutes, and they are replenished regularly every thirtieth of a second. It is through this time interval that an electromagnetic pulse passes in the discharge path, replenishing Kolobok with energy.

Therefore, the duration of the existence of ball lightning is in principle unlimited. The process should stop only when the charge of the cloud is exhausted, more precisely, the “effective charge” that the cloud is able to transfer to the route. This is exactly how one can explain the fantastic energy and relative stability of ball lightning: it exists due to the influx of energy from the outside. Thus, phantoms in Lem’s science fiction novel “Solaris”, possessing materiality ordinary people and incredible strength, could only exist with the supply of colossal energy from the living Ocean.

The electric field in ball lightning is close in magnitude to the level of breakdown in a dielectric, whose name is air. In such a field, the optical levels of atoms are excited, which is why ball lightning glows. In theory, weak, non-luminous, and therefore invisible ball lightning should be more frequent.

The process in the atmosphere develops in the mode of ball or linear lightning, depending on the specific conditions in the path. There is nothing incredible or rare in this duality. Let's remember ordinary combustion. It is possible in the mode of slow flame propagation, which does not exclude the mode of a rapidly moving detonation wave.

What does ball lightning consist of?

...Lightning comes down from the sky. It is not yet clear what it should be, spherical or regular. It greedily sucks the charge from the cloud, and the field in the path decreases accordingly. If, before hitting the Earth, the field in the path falls below a critical value, the process will switch to the ball lightning mode, the path will become invisible, and we will notice that ball lightning is descending to the Earth.

The external field in this case is much smaller than the own field of ball lightning and does not affect its movement. This is why bright lightning moves chaotically. Between flashes, ball lightning glows weaker and its charge is small. The movement is now directed by the external field and is therefore linear. Ball lightning can be carried by wind. And it's clear why. After all, the negative ions that it consists of are the same air molecules, only with electrons stuck to them.

The rebound of ball lightning from the near-Earth “trampoline” layer of air is simply explained. When ball lightning approaches the Earth, it induces a charge in the soil, begins to release a lot of energy, heats up, expands and quickly rises under the influence of the Archimedean force.

Ball lightning plus the surface of the Earth forms an electrical capacitor. It is known that a capacitor and a dielectric attract each other. Therefore, ball lightning tends to locate itself above dielectric bodies, which means it prefers to be above wooden walkways or above a barrel of water. The long-wave radio emission associated with ball lightning is created by the entire path of the ball lightning.

The hiss of ball lightning is caused by bursts of electromagnetic activity. These flashes occur at a frequency of about 30 hertz. The hearing threshold of the human ear is 16 hertz.

Ball lightning is surrounded by its own electromagnetic field. Flying past an electric light bulb, it can inductively heat and burn out its filament. Once in the wiring of a lighting, radio broadcasting or telephone network, it closes its entire route to this network. Therefore, during a thunderstorm, it is advisable to keep the networks grounded, say, through discharge gaps.

Ball lightning, “spread out” over a barrel of water, together with the charges induced in the ground, forms a capacitor with a dielectric. Ordinary water is not an ideal dielectric; it has significant electrical conductivity. Current begins to flow inside such a capacitor. Water is heated by Joule heat. The “barrel experiment” is well known, when ball lightning heated about 18 liters of water to a boil. According to theoretical estimates, the average power of ball lightning when it floats freely in the air is approximately 3 kilowatts.

In exceptional cases, for example in artificial conditions, an electrical breakdown may occur inside the ball lightning. And then plasma appears in it! In this case, a lot of energy is released, artificial ball lightning can shine brighter than the sun. But usually the power of ball lightning is relatively small - it is in the elma state. Apparently, the transition of artificial ball lightning from the elma state to the plasma state is possible in principle.

Artificial ball lightning

Knowing the nature of the electric Kolobok, you can make it work. Artificial ball lightning can greatly exceed the power of natural lightning. By drawing an ionized trace along a given trajectory in the atmosphere with a focused laser beam, we will be able to direct ball lightning where we need it. Let's now change the supply voltage and transfer the ball lightning to linear mode. Giant sparks will obediently rush along the trajectory we have chosen, crushing rocks and felling trees.

There is a thunderstorm over the airfield. The airport terminal is paralyzed: landing and takeoff of aircraft is prohibited... But the start button is pressed on the control panel of the lightning dissipation system. A fiery arrow shot up into the clouds from a tower near the airfield. This artificial, controlled ball lightning that rose above the tower switched to linear lightning mode and, rushing into a thundercloud, entered it. The lightning path connected the cloud to the Earth, and the electrical charge of the cloud was discharged to the Earth. The process can be repeated several times. There will be no more thunderstorms, the clouds have cleared. Planes can land and take off again.

In the Arctic, it will be possible to light artificial fires. A three-hundred-meter charge path of artificial ball lightning rises up from a two-hundred-meter tower. Ball lightning switches on to plasma mode and shines brightly from a height of half a kilometer above the city.

For good illumination in a circle with a radius of 5 kilometers, ball lightning is sufficient, emitting a power of several hundred megawatts. In artificial plasma mode, such power is a solvable problem.

The Electric Gingerbread Man, who for so many years has avoided making close acquaintance with scientists, will not leave: sooner or later he will be tamed, and he will learn to benefit people.

Ball lightning is a glowing clump of very hot gas that can occasionally appear in thunderstorm conditions. There are many testimonies of people who have seen or believe that they have actually seen ball lightning.

Ball lightning: photographs of eyewitnesses can give some idea of ​​these phenomena. Of course, we must remember that such a phenomenon has not yet been fully understood by physics. But you shouldn’t treat it as something super unusual, supernatural. This phenomenon has not yet been fully studied, but scientists continue to actively study it.

Ball lightning is a very beautiful phenomenon in itself.

Not many people saw it in reality.

Ball lightning can occur anywhere on the earth.

Of course, certain conditions are necessary for the occurrence of ball lightning.

Most often, ball lightning occurs during a thunderstorm.

There are not many explanations for this phenomenon.

Some of these theories still have a right to exist.

Not many people have seen ball lightning in reality.

However, many people have an idea of ​​what it really looks like.

There are not so many photographs of eyewitnesses of ball lightning.

However, they all simply amaze with their majesty.

Ball lightning has been known about for a long time.

This is a very unique phenomenon.

The color of the ball may vary.

There are both white and black balls.

The first written mention of mysterious and mysterious fireballs can be found in the chronicles of 106 BC. BC: “Huge fiery birds appeared over Rome, carrying hot coals in their beaks, which, falling down, burned houses. The city was on fire...” Also, more than one description of ball lightning was discovered in Portugal and France in the Middle Ages, the phenomenon of which prompted alchemists to spend time looking for opportunities to dominate the spirits of fire.

Ball lightning is considered a special type of lightning, which is a luminous fireball floating through the air (sometimes shaped like a mushroom, drop or pear). Its size usually ranges from 10 to 20 cm, and it itself comes in blue, orange or white tones (although you can often see other colors, even black), the color is heterogeneous and often changes. People who have seen what ball lightning looks like say that inside it consists of small, stationary parts.

As for the temperature of the plasma ball, it has not yet been determined: although, according to scientists’ calculations, it should range from 100 to 1000 degrees Celsius, people who found themselves near the fireball did not feel the heat from it. If it explodes unexpectedly (although this does not always happen), all the liquid nearby evaporates, and the glass and metal melts.

A case was recorded when a plasma ball, once in a house, fell into a barrel containing sixteen liters of freshly brought well water. However, it did not explode, but boiled the water and disappeared. After the water finished boiling, it was hot for twenty minutes.

A fireball can exist for quite a long time, and when moving, it can suddenly change direction, and it can even hang in the air for several minutes, after which it abruptly moves away to the side at a speed of 8 to 10 m/s.

Ball lightning occurs mainly during a thunderstorm, but repeated cases of its appearance in sunny weather have also been recorded. It usually appears in a single copy (at least modern science I haven’t recorded anything else), and often in the most unexpected way: it can descend from the clouds, appear in the air, or swim out from behind a post or tree. It is not difficult for her to penetrate into a closed space: there are known cases of her appearing from sockets, televisions, and even in pilot cockpits.

Many cases of constant occurrence of ball lightning in the same place have been recorded. So, in a small town near Pskov there is a Devil's Glade, where black ball lightning periodically jumps out of the ground (it began to appear here after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite). Its constant occurrence in the same place gave scientists the opportunity to try to record this appearance using sensors, however, without success: they were all melted while ball lightning moved across the clearing.

Secrets of ball lightning

For a long time, scientists did not even admit the existence of such a phenomenon as ball lightning: information about its appearance was attributed mainly to either an optical illusion or hallucinations that affect the retina of the eye after a flash of ordinary lightning. Moreover, the evidence about what ball lightning looks like did not coincide in many ways, and during its reproduction in laboratory conditions It was possible to obtain only short-term phenomena.

Everything changed after the beginning of the 19th century. physicist Francois Arago published a report with collected and systematized eyewitness accounts of the phenomenon of ball lightning. Although these data managed to convince many scientists of the existence of this amazing phenomenon, skeptics still remained. Moreover, the mysteries of ball lightning do not decrease over time, but only multiply.

First of all, the nature of the appearance of the amazing ball is unclear, since it appears not only in a thunderstorm, but also on a clear, fine day.

The composition of the substance is also unclear, which allows it to penetrate not only through door and window openings, but also through tiny cracks, and then again take on its original form without harming itself (physicists can solve this phenomenon at this moment unable).

Some scientists, studying the phenomenon, have put forward the assumption that ball lightning is actually a gas, but in this case, the plasma ball, under the influence of internal heat, would have to fly up like a hot air balloon.

And the nature of the radiation itself is unclear: where does it come from - only from the surface of the lightning, or from its entire volume. Also, physicists cannot help but be faced with the question of where the energy disappears, what is inside the ball lightning: if it only went into radiation, the ball would not disappear in a few minutes, but would glow for a couple of hours.

Despite the huge number of theories, physicists still cannot give a scientifically sound explanation of this phenomenon. But, there are two opposing versions that have gained popularity in scientific circles.

Hypothesis No. 1

Dominic Arago not only systematized the data on the plasma ball, but also tried to explain the mystery of ball lightning. According to his version, ball lightning is a specific interaction of nitrogen with oxygen, during which energy is released that creates lightning.

Another physicist Frenkel supplemented this version with the theory that the plasma ball is a spherical vortex, consisting of dust particles with active gases that became so due to the resulting electrical discharge. For this reason, a vortex-ball may well exist for quite a long time. His version is supported by the fact that a plasma ball usually appears in dusty air after an electrical discharge, and leaves behind a small smoke with a specific odor.

Thus, this version suggests that all the energy of the plasma ball is inside it, which is why ball lightning can be considered an energy storage device.

Hypothesis No. 2

Academician Pyotr Kapitsa did not agree with this opinion, since he argued that for the continuous glow of lightning, additional energy was needed that would feed the ball from the outside. He put forward a version that the phenomenon of ball lightning is fueled by radio waves with a length of 35 to 70 cm, resulting from electromagnetic oscillations arising between thunderclouds and the earth's crust.

He explained the explosion of ball lightning by an unexpected stop in the energy supply, for example, a change in the frequency of electromagnetic oscillations, as a result of which rarefied air “collapses.”

Although his version was liked by many, the nature of ball lightning does not correspond to the version. At the moment, modern equipment has never recorded radio waves of the desired wavelength, which would appear as a result of atmospheric discharges. In addition, water is an almost insurmountable obstacle to radio waves, and therefore a plasma ball would not be able to heat water, as in the case of a barrel, much less boil it.

The hypothesis also casts doubt on the scale of the plasma ball explosion: it is not only capable of melting or smashing durable and strong objects into pieces, but also breaking thick logs, and its shock wave can overturn a tractor. At the same time, the ordinary “collapse” of rarefied air is not capable of performing all these tricks, and its effect is similar to a bursting balloon.

What to do if you encounter ball lightning

Whatever the reason for the appearance of an amazing plasma ball, it must be borne in mind that a collision with it is extremely dangerous, since if a ball filled with electricity touches a living creature, it may well kill, and if it explodes, it will destroy everything around.

When you see a fireball at home or on the street, the main thing is not to panic, not to make sudden movements and not to run: ball lightning is extremely sensitive to any air turbulence and may well follow it.

You need to slowly and calmly turn out of the way of the ball, trying to stay as far away from it as possible, but under no circumstances turn your back. If ball lightning is indoors, you need to go to the window and open the window: following the movement of air, the lightning will most likely fly out.

It is also strictly forbidden to throw anything into the plasma ball: this may well lead to an explosion, and then injuries, burns, and in some cases even cardiac arrest are inevitable. If it so happens that a person was unable to move away from the trajectory of the ball, and it hit him, causing loss of consciousness, the victim should be moved to a ventilated room, wrapped warmly, given artificial respiration and, of course, immediately call an ambulance.

Questions about the existence of ball lightning - a glowing electric ball hovering above the earth - have bothered scientists for many centuries, creating a huge layer of myths and legends around it. This mystical natural phenomenon, which can also be called “earth lightning,” usually appears during a thunderstorm in the form of a sphere drifting above the ground - the colors of these objects vary from orange to yellow. The phenomenon usually does not last long - only a couple of seconds, but is accompanied by hissing and a pungent odor.

Lightning, as such, is an electrical discharge caused by a positive and negative imbalance within the clouds themselves or between thunderclouds and the ground. A lightning flash can heat the air around it to temperatures five times higher than the sun. High temperatures cause the surrounding air to rapidly expand and vibrate, hence thunder.

What is ball lightning?

Ball lightning is a luminous spherical clot of electric current. Even if it exists, and some scientists doubt it, it is very rare. However, many amazing stories are known about the tricks of ball lightning.

What does ball lightning look like?

Descriptions of ball lightning differ greatly from each other, so it is not possible to accurately answer the question posed. Thus, some eyewitnesses described them as moving up and down, others - to the side, others - along an unpredictable trajectory, others - were in a static position, and others - against the wind. There were also claims that ball lightning could be repelled from people, cars or buildings without any impact; others claim that this phenomenon, on the contrary, is attracted by surrounding objects.

Some eyewitnesses claim that ball lightning is capable of passing through solid objects - metals, trees without any effect; others say that upon contact with the “fireball,” substances explode, melt, or are otherwise destroyed. There was evidence of lightning occurring near power lines, at different heights, in thunderstorms and in calm weather.

Eyewitnesses gave the phenomenon many different types- transparent, translucent, multi-colored, evenly illuminated, emitting flames, threads or sparks; and its shapes vary no less - spheres, ovals, drops, rods or disks. Some often confuse ball lightning with St. Elmo's Fire, but you need to understand that these are two different natural phenomena.