Klotblixten är ett ovanligt fenomen som än idag saknar vetenskaplig förklaring. Dessa bollar av energi uppträder i allmänhet i anslutning till åskväder och kan beskrivas som ett lysande klot med en diameter på ett par decimeter.
Det dyker upp en video på Facebook, med titeln ”Ball Lightning in North Texas”. Samma video på YouTube:
Jag påminns om något min egen mor berättat flera gånger. En märklig händelse när hon var barn. På besök hemma hos en kompis kom en lysande boll ned genom spisen. Den vandrade genom rummet ut i hallen, utan att nudda någonting. Ytterdörren stod öppen. Då svävade klotet ut där. Så snart det kommit utomhus slog det ned i marken med en hög smäll!
Inlägget på Facebook ovan har, när detta skrivs, fått drygt tvåhundrafyrtio tusen gillningar och delats nästan hundratusen gånger. På tre dagar.
Inlägget har dessutom kommenterats trettiotusen gånger och det är egentligen här som det blir riktigt intressant. Vad folk berättar. Jag ska erkänna att jag har tvivlat på min mors berättelse. Tänkt på hur minnet kan spela en spratt. Men när jag läser de många vittnesmålen (se ett stort urval nedan!) inser jag att andra upplevt samma naturfenomen och ibland på ett slående likartat vis.
Vem vet om videon från Texas är sann eller inte. Det finns mycket skämt och lurendrejeri där ute. Klippet påstås ha registrerats av en övervakningskamera. (Isåfall en kamera som är konstruerad att följa ett händelseförlopp, när något rör på sig.) Det har funnits en annan video som setts av miljoner. En teknisk granskning av den filmen (främst av ljudet, tror jag det var) reste frågetecken om dess äkthet och som jag förstår det har personen som postat senare erkänt att det var en fabrikation.
Men de många kommentarerna gör intryck. Då spelar det faktiskt mindre roll om Texas-filmen är sann eller inte. Människor har tagit chansen att få berätta om sina egna och närståendes upplevelser.
Här är en sansad artikel från webbsidan Science Direct om fenomenet klotblixtar. Också Wikipedia har så klart en post om detta. Där står bland annat:
Existensen av klotblixtfenomenet är fortfarande omstridd, och än i dag finns det ingen konsensus i forskarvärlden. Vissa menar att det enbart är en optisk illusion likt den som uppstår när man blir bländad med en kamerablixt medan andra försökt sig på mer fysikaliska förklaringsmodeller. De vanligaste hypoteserna bygger på att klotet består av en joniserad och kraftigt elektriskt laddad gas, ett plasma.
Även svenska SMHI har en text (citatet högst upp kommer därifrån). Man påpekar att forskarsamhället länge varit skeptiskt till att fenomenet klotblixtar/kulblixtar över huvud taget existerar. Dock har detta ändrats:
Trots att man inte vet så mycket om hur de uppstår är de flesta nu överens om att fenomenet finns, i och med det stora antalet rapporter som inkommer, och inte minst för att meteorologi-institutionen i Edinburgh själva en gång härjades av en klotblixt!
Klotblixtar är verkligen ett mysterium. De tycks trotsa naturlagarna, åtminstone dem man är van att tänka på. Vanliga blixtar har något att göra med en spänning uppe i molnen som far ned mot jorden och urladdas där. Ganska straight forward. Kraftfullt, skrämmande, men på något vis begripligt ändå. Men ett klot av energi som svävar omkring för sig självt, samt väjer för väggar och föremål?
En bekant som är ytterst kvalificerad i UFO-frågan bekräftar att vissa sådana observationer verkligen hamnar på gränsen mellan enklare klotblixtfenomen och just oidentifierade flygande ”farkoster”. Som denna:
One hot summer evening I saw a huge ball of light coming out of the sky down straight towards me. Coming right at me, getting bigger and bigger. Right when I really was starting to panic, I thought it was a meteor or something coming to land in the field in front of me, it changed course; hovered for a brief second and shot horizontally across the sky until it disappeared. I thought I witnessed some sort of UFO but maybe it was this?
Nu till resten av kommentarerna jag samlat på mig från den där tråden! Många av dem känns mycket autentiska. Folk berättar om sådant som inte sällan hänt för länge sedan men som tycks ha etsat sig fast i deras minne:
[I] have seen it one time in my life. I’m not saying this isn’t AI generated it’s hard to tell but that is pretty much what it looks like and how it acts. It almost acts alive looking for its best victim to absorb its energy. It’s definitely scary s***. Have a wonderful day!
[I]t happened to me when I was a kid. My grandma and I were in the back bedroom during a bad summer storm (windows were up as she didn’t have central AC) a ball came through the screen of the window and landed in the floor then just seemed to disappear. Left a black mark on the floor! I was a kid but I remember it like it was yesterday!
I actually seen a ball of lightening when I was young and it’s something I’ll never forget. I was looking out the window during the storm at our back yard and out of nowhere, a ball of white and bluish light just rolled across the backyard and literally knocked the stump that used to be a tree over. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Didn’t look like this though but they wouldn’t all be the same.
I have seen one in my home as a 5 year old. It passed right in front of me as I sat on the floor playing. The weather was terrible outside. Such a vivid memory.
I’ve also seen lightening come through a door window, ring the phone on the wall and go out the window across the room. Glad I wasn’t on the phone!
[M]y mother when she lived in Canada as a child (1920s) saw one come down the metal stove pipe and explode out of the front door of the cast iron stove! Bounced around the room and then dissipated. Energy seeking a ground? But currently ball lightning is still not thoroughly understood.
My mom knew a lady who had this stuff go through her house more than once. But she lived up on the ridge and the lightening activity on the ridge was nuts.
When I was a child and there was a thunder and lightening storm, my mother and other neighbours always used to open the front and the back door of the house, she said, if a lightening ball came in, it would roll through and find its way out.
We never experienced that, but this was back in the 50’s and most households did the same thing just in case a lightening ball came.
We had a ball of lighting come down our chimney roll across the livingroom carpet down the hall and hit the hall closet door once.
[B]olt came down a tree hot cable line then ball came across deck into house screen n flashed inside kitchen w us making cookies. Scared the hell out of us kids. Dad saw everything from reflection in entertainment center glass as the TV cut out. Won’t forget that day.
I saw one 60 years ago one hot summer night, I slept in the attic room and the window was open. It came in the window, rolled round the room and then just disappeared
And no I was not dreaming, I was wide awake when it happened
I saw one just like this while waiting for a traffic light. It came out of one of those big transformer yards. It just sat in the middle of the road. I had a green light but there was no way I was driving into that thing. When the light turned red again it just floated off.
We saw some bols of fire rolling down the river bed and over the lawn like tumble weeds when I was little. They were about half a meter high. This happend in Namibia.
I’m an alarm engineer and I had a customer call me out to her alarm that went haywire after she reported sitting in her living room and hearing an almighty bang! Then ball lightning entered through her front room window attacked her TV then her phone and then carried on down the hallway and dissipated into her alarm panel causing it to go ape shit and die. On arrival it was indeed toasted. Epic.
Back in the 70s I was at my friend’s house one of those things came through the window and chased us at first it was small then got bigger bounce on the wall ended inside the kitchen my friend mom was cooking chicken soup and went into the pot and exploded it was scary. Chicken soup all over the walls.
Seen it before 47 years ago & it’s scarry as hell!
When I was in El Paso I saw balls of lightning. They’d bounce across the field at you. Crazy. I still don’t go out when it’s lightning.
We had a ball of lighting meander in a nearby field while we were playing basketball, it hit three cars, went off the fence of the court, rocketed high into the sky and came down quickly before it went through the basket. Nothing but net.
I’ve only ever seen it once. I was looking out the window of the holiday unit we were in. It rolled towards the building from the sand dunes then rolled along the building wall and exploded with the loudest thunderclap I’ve ever heard. Left a scorch mark on the wall too. Scared me so much I slept in the hallway for the rest of our holiday.
Watched my sister chased thru the house followed by ball lightning, its real seen it with my own eyes. The large tree next to our house always got hit during storms maybe it originated from one of those strikes.
I witnessed this phenomenon as a child in my parent’s home. A literal ball of lightning came through a screen door, passed through the room and went out of a window right in front of us. I was maybe 6 years old and I still remember it vividly.
In the 70s my parents were sitting at the kitchen table. There was a screen on the window, and ball lightning rolled in the window. It rolled around on the table and rolled back out. My parents say it acted…sentient. And they aren’t fanciful. They bought lightning rods for the house, and took them off a few years later when they learned they attracted lightning.
In Texas when I was a child my Mom & I were trying to sleep as I was scared of the severe thunderstorm. The window was open on a spring night. We heard a loud crack then saw what looked like lightning in a small ball shoot in & appeared to make contact w/a metal handle on the dresser. No damage was visible though. Scared the heck out of us!
I had one float through a new house I was working on. Came in through an open patio door and floated out through an open window in the living room. I was in the living room at my chop saw cutting a piece of wood trim when it happened. I heard a boom out back and turned to see what it was. A lightning strike had hit a tree in the backyard and this ball came floating through the house, missing me by about six feet. It shook me up so much, I packed up and went home for the rest of the day. Never saw anything like it before then or since.
My grandma told me when her kids were young..they all had their glasses of water on a table by a window. It was storming out..and lightning struck..and a ball of lightening came through and danced from cup to cup of water till it dissipated.
My brother told me when he was in the Seabees during WW II they were being transported to the West Indies by ship and the skies were dark, many were out on the deck when lightning hit the ship,he said it looked like a ball rolling around,those who didn’t see it doubted the ones who did. He told this story to me back in the 60s. I believed him, he never lied about anything. Later his superior told them it was a reflection off the paint etc.
My father told me that he saw one back in the days when he used to live in a village. It came through house window and flew out same way. He called it ball-lightning. He said that all was burned around it.
My neighbor was in her kitchen baking cookies during a thunderstorm and a ball of lightening came through a window and went out another. The windows were in direct line of each other. She was really shaken by the experience.
When I was a kid ai was watching a thunderstorm outside and saw my first and only ball lightning as it walked down our cul-de-sack. My jaw was literally on he ground until at the end there was an almighty KABOOOM… and I dived for cover screaming (I was only 6 or 7 and it shook the windows).
Ball lightning is kugelblitz in German … but I called it cuckooblitzen as a child! My German grandmother told us a story of when ball lightning came into the farmhouse back door and travelled through the kitchen and out the front door!
My husband’s gramma was sitting reading the paper in the living room on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Lightning and thunder sounded, and a ball of lightning bounced through the screen door and rolled to within six feet of grandma, stopped, and fizzled out, burning a large hole in the carpet!
My mum chased around a kitchen by one when she was little, she had to hide under a table.
When I was about 14, a ball of lightning (much smaller) came through my bedroom window one night. I can remember seeing it go down the hallway and heard a faint sizzling. Never forgot it!
When I was about 12 years old in the early 60’s I was standing at the front door of my grandmother’s home in Louisville Ky – waiting for the summer rain storm to pass so I could go back outside. To my right I saw a white ball-shape come rolling gown the middle of the street – watched it pass the house and continue down the street – – looking like a white tumbleweed— and then it just dissolved, dissipated on the street/ gone. My grandmother who was standing beside me, told me it was “ball lightening” and was rare to see.
Years ago a ball of lightning came down through the wood burning chimney for hot water & my aunty was in the bath…flew around the room then out an open window. I can still hear her screams of terror as she was in water.
Back in the mid-1980s, I was working the overnight shift at 107.9 FM in Edinburg, TX when lightning actually came through the front door, into the reception area, through the glass-walled recording studio, and straight into the live booth. It hit the microphone and knocked the on-air broadcaster backwards! Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt—just startled and knocked off his feet.
My girlfriend told me years ago that one came through a window and went around her brother’s metal crib and back out the window again without harming him.
My mom told of a ball of lightening that hit their farmhouse and rolled down the stairway , knocked my grandpa off his chair at the breakfast table and then it bounced through a plate glass window behind him and didn’t break the window but it left a burned dent in the hard wood floor! Grandpa was knocked out but was ok.
A thing like that killed both my great grandparents… inside their home. In spanish they have the name of ”centellas”.
My mother talked about seeing these where they used to live. No one in our family believed it was a real thing. She said it would bob along like it was looking for something, then it hit the oven.
I don’t know. I’ve seen ball lightning before and this is pretty exact. I don’t think this is AI. If you’ve never seen it, you would almost think there was a celestial being moving in front of you.
Years ago like 65yrs ago we had a ball lightning come through our front screen door, spin through the living room and into the kitchen where it exploded on the electric oven door! Left a scorch mark! Astounding and spooky!!
In the 50’s when I was a kid lightening struck 3 dead tree near our house n fireball came through open kitchen window went all around ceiling then back out the window. Noise was deafening n we were all terrified.
I’ve seen this first hand when I was a 13 years old with my brother (blue glowing ball of energy about the size of a basketball). It went right between us and floated into our freestanding garage and bounced around up in the wood rafters until it disintegrated into a black carbon string.
We had one come through the window of our house when I was little and roll across our floor. I’ll never forget that.