Heat Lightning - U.F.O.

Last night i got off of work at 10 p.m. EST and I noticed that there was a heat lightning storm over the bay. I enjoy going down to the bay and also love nature. So i called a buddy of mine up and we went down to the docks to watch the "heat lightning". I'm not sure what the technical term is, but there was no audible thunder, only the lightning. (even though some of the strikes seemed only a few miles away, which is wild)

The lightning storm was near the coastline to the North East of us. Most of the strikes were in the clouds and non visible but occasionally there would be massive bolts that were visibly hitting the ground in the distance (or at least hitting trees).

I had recently watched a video on youtube about the time duration of lightning strikes. The video was about normal lightning (accompanied by thunder). So i wanted to see if the "bolts" in heat lighting were visible for a longer duration of time than normal lightning. From what my limited senses could determine, it's about the same. The longest strike i experienced was probably a little more than one tenth of a second. It might have even been two separate strikes that appeared to be one because the middle of the bolt was behind a cloud. There were many clouds near the storm, but we could see the stars directly over us and to the West.

Anyways, i had a mental "clock" going because of the “lightning counting” I was doing. Suddenly about 15 minutes into watching the storm I saw a very bright "orb" zoom right over us and into the distance (it was traveling South East). I yelled to my friend "did you just see that?!" but he had missed it. He asked me what i had seen and i said "i think i saw a shooting star."

I really wasn't sure what i had seen, so i left it at that. When i got home i thought about it. Although there is a first time for everything, I’ve never seen a shooting star where i live. The only time I've ever seen shooting stars in my entire life was when i was in Arizona. I remember shooting stars being very "fleeting" and “streaky”; lasting as long as lightning does; a few fractions of a second at most and leaving a very brief “trail” in the sky.

This is why I’m so puzzled. . . The orb I saw did not leave a streak and it was visible for more than a second; probably not more than two seconds but definitely more than a second. This “orb” also appeared to be “large”. I can’t honestly tell you how big, because I don’t know how far over our heads it was; but when it was at a 70/75 degree angle above us, it appeared to be (visually) the size of a basketball if it were suspended 10 feet high in the air directly over us. As it traveled South East it respectively became smaller until it was no longer visible.

I guess I’m hoping someone can explain what I saw.

-jphish


[edit on 8/9/2008 by JPhish]

reply to post by JPhish


Ball Lightning.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by RubyGloom


Ball Lightning sounds exactly like what i saw. But in the purported pictures of ball lightning on the web, it has a "tail". The spherical orb that i saw had no tail as far as a could tell. Although i'm still a bit uncertain about it because of the "tail" factor, I'd say that more likely than not it was this ball lightning phenomenon . . .

Thank you Ruby.


[edit on 8/9/2008 by JPhish]