Ball Lightning, UFOs And Other Mysteries

“Could it be that the meteor descending through the atmosphere, having passed through the ionosphere, actually created a transient conductive connection between the ionosphere and the ground, even if it was only for a few seconds? Was that enough to put charge into the ground, and then with the discharge form some kind of plasma ball above?”
 — Queensland University of Technology astrophysicist Stephen Hughes asks probing questions about the not-well-understood phenomenon of “ball lightning,” which has been posited as an explanation for the numerous reports of green fireballs seen rolling around the mountains west of Brisbane, Australia in May, 2006. This while a meteor shower lit up the sky above. Hughes also told BBC news, “If you put together inexplicable atmospheric phenomena, maybe of an electrical nature, with human psychology and the desire to see something — that could explain a lot of these UFO sightings.”

And here is what ball lightning looks like traveling along power lines in Saudi Arabia.