Re: Ball lightning, very close hit

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: FIFTYGUY@xxxxxxx 

In a message dated 1/18/07 1:34:19 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
tesla@xxxxxxxxxx writes:

>with one particular incident occurring in an
>airliner with several scientists on board returning from a conference.

    I was just going to mention that there's not much silicon in an 
airplane, yet there have been reports of ball lightning on airplanes. 
This alone means that dirt is not a necessary condition.
    Whether the existence of any *ground*, in the "Earth" sense of 
the term, is necessary might still be of debate. After all, it's 
doubtful anyone could say for sure whether the conditions for the 
observed airplane ball lightning involved cloud-to-earth lightning or not.
-Phil LaBudde