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Ball lighting may be induced hallucination

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posted on May, 12 2010 @ 09:09 PM
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This is a new theory on what may cause people to perceive ball lightning. The theory is that magnetic fields created during a thunderstorm may create optical hallucinations.



Ball lighting may be induced hallucination

Numerous encounters of light balls during thunderstorms may actually be magnetic fields playing with human senses.

Propeller The phenomenon of powerful magnetic fields causing hallucinations is well known since the 1980s. Called “transcranial magnetic stimulation” (TMS), the technique is used in the lab to study the workings of the brain. Researchers focus an alternating magnetic field, which may be as powerful as 0.5 Tesla, on a specific area. This causes currents in the synapses. If TMS is applied to the visual cortex, the test subject will “see” glowing disks and lines.

A similar effect can happen in nature in specific conditions, say Joseph Peer and Alexander Kendl at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. In a paper published on the preprint website arXiv.org, they describe how a series of lightning striking in the same place can create an alternating magnetic field, acting similar to TMS experiments on people as far as 200 meters.

Such an event would be quite rare, with only about one to five percent of strikes capable of inducing a hallucination, the researchers say. And of those, only a handful would be witnessed from distance close enough, but not too close to harm the observer.

Read more: RT



They say the theory will be difficult to prove or disprove because of the difficulty in getting experimental data.

[edit on 5/12/10 by FortAnthem]



posted on May, 12 2010 @ 10:15 PM
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reply to post by FortAnthem
 


Ball lightening is real. I saw many balls of lightening during one tornado.

As the 1/2 mile wide tornado came through the osage orange hedge row, giant balls of lightening were flying everywhere from the base of the tornado. They were probably about 10 feet in diameter and very blue, and they were very real. I almost got a VHS video of them. But instead, in all of my excitement of my vehicle tipping back and forth from one side to the other, I only got a great shot of the passenger door thinking I had the camera up high enough while I was driving to get away from the tornado.

I did get some pretty good footage of that tornado and the damage that it did. It was quite remarkable how one minute everything is in perfect order as things had been for lifetimes, and ten minutes later its all gone.



posted on May, 12 2010 @ 10:26 PM
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reply to post by RussianScientists
 


Well, like I said, it's only a theory.

I was hoping to get some feedback like yours from people who had really seen some to see what they think of this theory.

It is interesting that magnetic fields can create hallucinations like that. With all the power lines running everywhere and electronic gadgets all around us, it makes you wonder if it's not affecting our perception of reality somehow.



posted on May, 12 2010 @ 10:43 PM
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Hmm,

Official gibberish.....like saying "Income tax is voluntary"...Even though the quoted statement is written into IRS code. If you fail to pay you go to jail.

Having seen ball lightning 2 times in one week, stone cold sober, Its real.



posted on May, 12 2010 @ 10:57 PM
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reply to post by FortAnthem
 

Ah, crap! And I thought it all was swamp gas and mass hallcinations!

Next thing you know people of knowledge will be telling me it's all due to chinese laterns or Air Force flares.



posted on May, 12 2010 @ 11:06 PM
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reply to post by FortAnthem
 


Imagine what could happen, if Tesla was correct. We can get electricity from the universe.

We know that we will have wireless electricity power to our TV's and computers, etc. soon.

We can produce electrical power, a lot of it is lost along the insulated lines, that crisscross the world. Man, if I could suck up that lost energy and power my appliances, that woud be cool.

What, though, will actually happen to people and other animals with just freaking electricity flowing everywhere? I don't know. But mass hysteria or hallucinations is a scary thought.



posted on May, 12 2010 @ 11:21 PM
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So this hallucination occurs in the ears and eyes simultaneously? Multiple people all hallucinate the same thing at the same time? Even camera equipment is prone to this hallucination?

I dunno it just sounds all a bit like a fundamentalist or skeptic grasping at straws to explain the egg on their face.



posted on May, 13 2010 @ 02:55 AM
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There are photos of ball lightning. How the hell are they hallucinations?



posted on May, 13 2010 @ 03:55 PM
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Just saw this on Physorg:

Ball lightning was first reported in St. Petersburg in Russia in 1754 by a Dr. Richmann, who was attempting to copy Benjamin Franklin’s kite-lightning experiment, and who was instantly killed by the lightning. It is rarely seen and photographic evidence is almost nonexistent. There are dozens of theories of how ball lightning could form, including the burning of hot silicon particles produced when a lightning strike vaporizes the ground.


Ball lightning may be explained as hallucinations

I think its kind of funny reading the comments on the site as well.

I laughed when I read the part about the first guy to report ball lightening... who was instantly killed by the lightening?! How did he report it then?!


Aren't there also some people that say that ball lightening is witnessed during crop circle formations? I seem to remember somebody saying something like that...




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