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On a Sunday afternoon in 1638, a ball of fire smashed through the window of a packed Devon church, killing four worshippers and injuring sixty. The congregation blamed the Devil. Nearly four centuries later, science still cannot fully explain what happened. They call it ball lightning — glowing spheres that appear in thunderstorms, drift through walls, and vanish without a trace.
Over 5,000 eyewitness reports. Over 100 competing theories. Zero consensus.
1195
Earliest known record — a medieval monk in Canterbury describes a "fiery globe" descending near London. Ball lightning has been observed on every continent, in every century since.
1–180s
Balls persist from one second to three minutes — millions of times longer than a lightning bolt.
1cm–15m
From pea-sized to larger than a car. Most reports describe balls the size of a human head.
87
Documented cases of ball lightning encounters with aircraft, including three military losses.
The Evidence
The Devil's Church
A ball of fire entered the Church of St Pancras during a packed Sunday service, killing four and injuring sixty. Later folklore attributed the disaster to the Devil. It is often interpreted as a ball-lightning account, although no instruments identified the electrical event.
The Scientist's Death
Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann was measuring atmospheric electricity when a pale blue ball of fire appeared near his apparatus and struck him in the forehead. The event is often included in ball-lightning histories, although its precise discharge mechanism was not instrumentally recorded.
The First Spectrum
In 2012, Chinese researchers recorded video and an emission spectrum of a ball-lightning event. The spectrum revealed silicon, iron, and calcium — elements from vaporized soil, not air. The breakthrough was published in Physical Review Letters and provides rare instrumental evidence about that event.
Centuries of Mystery
The Widecombe Disaster
A ball of fire enters a Devon church during a thunderstorm, killing four and injuring sixty. The event is blamed on the Devil and commemorated in a famous woodcut.
Richmann's Death
Georg Wilhelm Richmann dies during an atmospheric-electricity experiment in St Petersburg. A witness describes a bluish luminous discharge near the apparatus.
Tesla's Fireballs
Nikola Tesla conducts powerful electrical experiments in Colorado Springs. He later claims artificial fireball production; their identity with natural ball lightning remains unestablished.
Kapitsa's Theory
Pyotr Kapitsa proposes an electromagnetic standing-wave model. He would receive the Nobel Prize for low-temperature physics in 1978.
First Spectrum Captured
Chinese researchers on the Qinghai Plateau capture the first scientific spectrum of natural ball lightning, finding silicon, iron, and calcium from vaporized soil.
Key Figures
François Arago
French astronomer whose early discussion of unusual lightning reports influenced later catalogues. An English collection of his meteorological essays appeared after his death in 1853.
Pyotr Kapitsa
Nobel Prize-winning Soviet physicist who proposed the electromagnetic standing wave theory in 1955. His willingness to take ball lightning seriously gave permission to a generation of researchers.
The Fire Still Walks
After nearly a thousand years of observation, over a hundred theories, and one single spectrum captured on a Chinese plateau — ball lightning remains unsolved.
Accounts describe luminous objects in churches, aircraft and rooms; proposed explanations still need better observations. The fire still walks. And we still do not know why.
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Compare historical accounts with modern observations, laboratory experiments and unresolved mechanisms.