Re: Ball lightning, very close hit

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: William Beaty <billb@xxxxxxxxxx>


Hey that reminds me.   I just moved a big load of Ball Lightning
eyewitness reports onto http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/bl.html .
I finally got around to stripping the spam (etc.) crap from the cached
entries for 2005 and 2006.   Lots of new stuff.

Jim, you might want to type in your own BL entry using the form at:
http://amasci.com/~billb/cgi-bin/unusual/hh.html

Obviously these reports are totally unverified, and anyone can make up any
weird story that they want  ...which is true of all human reporting.



On Wed, 17 Jan 2007, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Jim Mora" <jmora@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Hello All,
>
> When I was a young man I lived in Illinois within the tornado
> belt.  I left a friend's house as the sky was turning very dark and a
> tell tale greenish tint. I was about a mile from home in my car when
> all the warning sirens went off. Looking out the windshield and up
> toward sky I could see clouds churning violently and the beginning
> formation of a funnel cloud. Dry bolt lightning was striking all over.
>
> As I turned a tight corner the telephone pole a few feet from the
> passenger door exploded from a direct hit. The bolt sort of rolled
> into a ball and rode on top of a steel guard rail for a few hundred
> feet a leader remained connected to it. This lasted a few seconds.
> The ball and lightning jumped into the Burlington Railroad and found
> ground and a branch struck up a high voltage line that ran along the
> railroad. Many braches came out of the wires directly above the rail
> impact (or down?).
>
> My car was totally charged, my radio was blown out and my hair was
> literally on end since there was not yet any rain. The charge bled
> off after a few blocks which pasted at close to 60mi and hour! That
> was the most amazing and frightening display of Nature I have ever 
experienced.
>
> Regards,
> Jim Mora
>
>

(((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                            SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb at amasci com                         http://amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits   amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair
Seattle, WA  425-222-5066    unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci