What’s the difference between ball lightning and a UFO?
Something is happening on a highway cutting through the US southwestern desert. A string of cars has pulled over on the hard shoulder, the drivers standing together and pointing into the distance. Another car is flagged down as it approaches. “You have got to see this,” urges the breathless onlooker. “It’s aliens for sure.” He points to a bright light moving in the sky. It is not an aircraft, a star, or anything else any of them have seen before. The driver is in the uniform of a Major in the USAF. He gives a wry smile. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s probably one of ours.” If the Major was referring to ball lightning and not an advanced craft, he might be right. Ball lightning is the most curious of unexplained phenomena. Witnessed by as many as five per cent of the population, it was dismissed as an optical illusion for many years. Then, after repeated sightings by accredited scientists, it gradually won acceptance as a real, if mysterious, effect. It appears as a glowing sphere, rangi
