Peggy Anning contacted ABC Radio to report an unusual lightning experience that happened to her that morning. I was informed about it and later contacted her for more.

Peggy Anning hadn't previously known about ball lightning but her description of it is like that of other similar reports. Sometimes BL is seen to pass through glass windows without any damage and it seems that this is what happened this time. (BL can also leave a circular hole in the window about the size of a golf ball, see below.)

This event happened very quickly occuring in the morning at 6.03am on 17-11-03. It appears it must have descended from the sky from the NW at about a 45 degree angle, missing her neighbours roof and passed 'somewhere' through a large glass window or the closed door next to it. The glass door with its metal mesh door and metal framework has a glass window to the side (overall about 2 x 3 meters). No damage can be found to the door or window. The curtains were open at the time.

After passing through the door or glass window it travelled across a wooden table without disturbing any of the objects on it and down a hallway perhaps bouncing off a wall on its way. The only damage being a broken lampshade in the hallway. The globe in the light fitting remained intact. It happened almost simultaneously with an exceptionally loud crack of thunder and lightning outside that felt very powerful.

" It had a very bright white centre and orange around it, like a ball or body of a spider with small spidery offshoots coming from it in the form of typical lightning.

It was very eerie and difficult to describe but it seemed to look 'heavy'. It was very fast and different to a continuous or long bolt of lightning. Its size is hard to estimate but between 7 to 20 cm. ".

Only seconds earlier Peggy been sitting in a chair that was directly in its path. After getting up, putting a cup on the sink and turning round it 'happened' right before her eyes and in full view. She was in shock afterwards thinking how narrowly she missed being struck.

There was no smell or odour left by it. The only noise she could recall was of the very loud thunder outside.

- Peggy Anning of Albany W.A. is 82 and very bright. Her hobbies include Lapidry and a personaly found collection of Australites (Tectites), from W.A. One of her daughters has an account of a Min Min light event that sounds interesting too. I'll perhaps get more about that later.

Thanks to Clare Valley, Albany, ABC Radio, South Coast WA. and Tony (Weatherzone).

Ball Lightning can also punch out or vapourise circular holes in glass windows. www.Science Frontiers - BL punches circular hole in window has one such report from a Russian collection of 43 accounts.

1970 ca. - Yarralumla, Canberra, ACT.

During a severe thunderstorm several years ago, ball lightning hit my backyard and subsequently my neighbor's. While the only evidence in my yard was the death of a 100ft (30m) tall Gum tree (which died within 48 hours), my neighbor's yard and house were substantially damaged. The ball lightning bounced over my boundary fence and landed on a steel reinforced concrete post and buckling the steel reinforcement. It then jumped onto my neighbor's verandah, where it fused the wrought iron tables and chairs into a molten mass, and entered the house through closed glass doors. The glass did not break, but the wooden door runners split open. The ball then hit the color television, rendering the picture half monochromatic and half color...The ball left through the wall of the house, leaving a one foot diameter hole framed with shredded wallpaper. It then bounced across the road into an adjacent property, where I assume it 'died' as no further damage was reported.

(A. McEwen, pers.com., 1983. From Mark Stenhoffs book 'Ball Lightning - An Unsolved Problem in Atmospheric Physics.' 1999. P.56)

1960 - South Philadelphia, USA.

Louise Matthews, lying on her sofa, saw a huge red ball coming through the window but leaving the glass and blinds unmarked. It made a sizzling sound and left a tingling feeling on the back of her neck when it passed by. She felt her neck but noticed nothing. It went into the dining room and left through another window leaving no damage. Her spouse came home to find her hand burned and the hair in the back of her neck falling out. - In 1970 (Aug. 12) a red ball appeared above Sidmouth, England and noisily exploded shutting off 2 500 television sets.

Uganda. Several blue BL's enter room through metal screens.

"Thunderstorms are frequent in the Entebbe Peninsula, Lake Victoria (Uganda). During one of these storms, which usually come at night time, there was a simultaneous flash of lightning and its associated clattering crash of thunder. A second or less later, several balls of brilliant blue light, about 4-6 cm diameter, entered the room through a window on the south side and 'floated' across the room to leave by a window on the east side. My wife and I were already awake (it would have been difficult not to be) and independently exclaimed aloud on what we had just seen."

Both windows were open but had metal screens. The same phenomenon occurred again during the same rainy season.

(Gillett, J.D.; "Balls of Fire," Nature, 299:294, 1982.)