ball lightning

[Monte Davis]

Ya Sam:
 
> I've seen a ball lightning only once in my life, it was the 
> size of a tennis 
> ball. Didn't try to talk to it.

I've never had the pleasure, but researched the topic long ago for a
pop-science book. What I remember best is the well-attested report of an
incident at a British base in Ceylon during WWII, in which a ball passed
smoothly through a chain-link fence and then skimmed the surface of a clay
tennis court, leaving a small trench of baked/fused clay.

One can do a lot of hand-waving physics about how ball lightning might
temporarily stabilize electric charge and/or superheated air/plasma, all of
which "ought" to dissipate instantly. But to not interact with well-grounded
metal in the fence, then interact so energetically with clay? That takes
some *serious* hand-waving.