Other Ball Lightning reports

plus other Australian States.

Nine Melbourne (plus 3 interstate) events recorded however more possibly occurred.

2nd December, 2001 - Mount Waverley, Melbourne.

Published in 'Waverley Leader', 11 December 2001. Reporter - Yvette Gray.

' LIGHTNING STRIKES 'A Mount Waverley couple were lucky to escape unscathed after a freak lightning strike at their home last week.

Robert and Nora Ashe were watching the Davis Cup in their lounge room on Sunday, December 2 when "an enormous mass of orange flame" appeared at their window. Described by experts as a lightning ball, the couple said they froze as they faced the lightning outside their Magna Court house.

"I looked up and saw a ball of flaming red light the size of a soccer ball, surrounded by what appeared to be flames and sparks," Mr Ashe said."At the same time there was a heap of electricity crackling in the air with a spitting noise."

Mrs Ashe said the 6.30pm news had just warned of a storm when the lightning struck. "It looked something like the eye of a cyclone," she said. "I wasn't frightened at the time but I must admit I woke up with a nightmare this morning."Neighbour Vivian Miller said she feared the worst when her house vibrated and the television went off after a loud bang.

Estimated damage at around $20,000 mainly electrical and possibly tiles /brickwork.

(Also personal communication.)

Photographed and observed by myself. Observed by seven other (found) witnesses and probably more that have not been located.

1st February, 2002 - Brighton, Melbourne.

Same time as BL photo (around 9pm) this occured in Brighton 12km away.

A white/silver ball of light was seen heading west and skimming the roof of a houses in Seymour Grove, Brighton (12km south west from Blackburn). The observer was watching the lightning from a window half way up a flight of stairs when it appeared out of nowhere and was heading toward the house she was in. She ducked instinctively as it approached thinking it was going to hit upstairs but fortunately it didn't. It was heading toward Port Phillip Bay which is less than a kilometre away. It appears it may have been soccer ball size. Loud continuous thunder. (Observers name witheld by request. Pers.com. at location)

Also at this time (around 9pm) :

A green with brighter centre one was seen in an area 10 km north west of Blackburn and was reported from an observer (Cathy Cotton) at Kangaroo Ground tower and is possibly what was also observed (an unusual horizontal streak of light) by a Qantas 767 pilot in bound to Melbourne (personal com). Or it might have been a seperate BL. Not discounting it was a typical green power grid strike (a power sub-station at Elsterwick was struck) but it appears there my have been an airborne sphere or flash that descended slower than normal lightning. Uncertain.

1st (or 25th) February, 2002 - Wandong / Kilmore area, north of Melbourne.

BL Storm - about 20 Fireballs observed during the one storm.

Orange ball lightning inside house.

Abbreviated from longer account (Pers.com).

Lindsay & Diana Nothrop, Lyneham, Canberra, ACT. 10.45am, 5/2/02 .

" ....There was the sound of an explosion and a red ball the size of a soccer ball appeared in one corner of the room. It was raining but we were not aware of any thunderstorm at the time. The ball was a fairly even mix of rapidly moving bright orange - red and yellow colour, my wife says, with a small greyish - white aura around it. The lower part was hidden from her view by furniture. It did not last long but it certainly was not a flash as she had sufficient time to observe it. Its appearence was just preceded by a loud low frequency boom. Neither the lounge chair or the curtains were singed".

Ball Lightning observed hitting house causing severe damage.

A house was impacted causing considerable damage (est.$250,000). A neighbour saw a fireball flying slowly and then exploding on impact with the house. After the fire in the roof was put out it was found that "tiles, elecrical wiring - everything - was fused together in a molten mass". Reported on Ch.7 News Brisbane.

20th February, 2002 - Steeles Creek, Melbourne.

Three small BL's inside house.

Thunderstorm was active and power had gone off. Two very bright white spheres bouncing eraticaly at first, each the size of ping-pong balls, appeared to come from the brick wall behind a freezer. "They seemed to bounce as if a child had just dropped them". Hovering jerkily and moving up and down just above the ground they then went across the room to the leg of a table where they instantly disappeared leaving no trace.

Immediately behind them came a third one. At first it was heading toward her then veered away to a metal stove and disappeared. They emmitted no sound or heat radiation even from the third one which passed more slowly within a metre.

(Pers.com.)

25th March, 2002 - Ferntree Gully, Melbourne.

Red Mist

Mrs.Margaret B., Bryden Drive, Ferntree Gully, 6 am before sunrise, pitch dark, thunderstorm and raining heavily. (Pers.com)

Woken by the storm she entered her hallway with the lights off and was confronted by a glowing Orange / Red colour coming from the windows at the back of the house. At first she thought it was the sunrise but it was too early. She then realised the glowing mist was opaque - that is she could not see anything in her yard such as the trees or even the pot plants and the overhanging verandah. She cannot remember how long she was looking out the windows trying to make sense of it but eventually turned on the very bright outside floodlights and then it all appeared normal. She opened the door and walked out (and possibly into it) but could no longer see it. She said she had not seen anything like it in her life. She told many of her friends until some one told her about my photo on television and she contacted me looking for some possible explanation.

Perhaps coincidence but 2 days later she was admitted to hospital with a blood clot in her right arm. The doctors remarked that they had never seen anyone before with a clot in their arm and that it was very strange.

Note: I was photographing the northern end of that particular storm at the same time and on till sunrise. One stroke reached horizontaly 5 miles or more indicating a very intense storm.

25th March, 2002 - Ferntree Gully, Melbourne.

The Gold Pendent

Mrs.Carmel C, Mason Street, Ferntree Gully, 9.05 PM. (Pers.com.)

A three foot diameter ball with colour and intensity like that of a bright light globe filament , Yellow / Gold, descended from cloud during spectacular thunderstorm. Arcing lightning was attached on either side and extended up as far as she could see. "It looked just like a pendent with chains attached coming down". The 'chains' were the same colour but dimmer than the ball. The left hand one was thicker except where it entered the ball. She was sitting on her bed at the time watching the lightning over The Dandenongs but the ball came down across the street and above the pavement.

The chains became smaller as it descended and retracted into the ball like a cord into a vacuum cleaner. As it neared the ground the ' disc ' as she prefers to describe it, got bigger to about four feet. It seemed to float to the ground without quite touching it and then bounced like a balloon up about six inches, tilted to the right and then righted itself back again. It stayed along time - about five minutes. She said it looked more like a flattish disc than a ball. " I could not take my eyes off it as it really looked beautiful. It is something I will never forget and it will stay in my mind forever".

Note: On my way home after interviewing her and just a hundred metres from her home I noticed a very large electricity sub-stations. It was also just two kilometres from the previous account in Ferntree Gully and on the same day but at 9.05 PM that night.

(I asked Carmel if she could draw a likeness of it and it appears below. Gold speckled ink on black card)

Three Daytime Silver Spheres.

Around 10.12 AM a woman claims she saw three objects, circular, bright and silver white flying over eastern Melbourne and St.Kilda.

"The first one appeared and darted up in a curve. As this occured a second silver object shot down in an arc leading upward from the horizon. The third object appeared in the same way but arced downward. All three objects were at least 20 miles (32Km) away, by my estimate of the cloud banks they were moving through".

Obtained from www.ufoinfo.com

Daytime White/Silver BL.

Felicity Hill, Laverton, 4-5pm. (Pers.com)

During a thunderstorm at about 4-5pm a small silver/white ball lightning was seen falling on to the N/E corner of Laverton Air Base. "It was about 400 metres away. It was a ball of light with a short tail travelling much slower than normal lightning and lasting about 3 - 5 seconds. It couldn't have been very big at all but big enough to see".

I also recieved calls from people in the relatively small area covered by the local 'Whitehorse Leader' newspaper about other strange lightning.

Three seperate callers told of lightning entering homes in strange shapeless plasma like states, not ball like and behaving very differently to ordinary lightning - moving slower - and apparently passing through glass windows and a sliding glass door.

In another instance lightning entered the Newsagents shop next to Nunnawading Station. This was told to me by the shop employee. "It rapidly ran down the glass window literaly like a sheet on the outside and slower than a flash of lightning, then under the half open sliding door (not through the open half) then across the floor and beneath/around a customers feet (he felt nothing) and finally to electrical cables under the counter".

At the same time 200 metres away a large Silky Oak tree was blown to pieces leaving a splintered stump 2 metres high. 2 - 3 metre pieces of the trunk were speared into a parked car, through a metal garage door and broke windows of a house. Coincidently these two events occurred along the same path that the Ball Lightning I photographed followed, only two weeks later on 15/2/2002 at about 6pm. So spectacular was the disintergration of the Silky Oak , what remained of it was photographed and published with the story in the 'Whitehorse Leader'.

Additionally, 3 more people contacted me telling of types of electrostatic 'bombs' falling from the sky on days when there was no thunderstorms active. Each description was similar and occured in close proximity - Donvale, Box Hill North and Blackburn . All were described as white, crackling with electricity and having a loud incoming sound (see Hirschfield 1971 BL Info 5 and Electrophonic sounds produced by Fireballs/Meteors). Each one left no crater or evidence or any damage. They just scared the hell out of people. The people that contacted me are likely to represent only a fraction of the actual events that have taken place.