The subject of ball lightning is a strange one. There is so far no agreed scientific explanation, and in particular no one can explain how a ball of electricity can hold together. A National Geographic article describes it as “weird, mysterious, perplexing”. But it does, as a range of careful accurate descriptions of observations have described, and some years ago we featured Christine Muir’s accountof an experience of ball lightning in her home in North Ronaldsay. Here now is a story from the neighbouring island of Sanday.
Our family has lived at the West Manse in Sanday for just over a quarter of a century. Stephen and I have two sons and two daughters, and this story involves him and one of our sons and one of our daughters.
Electric storms are rare in Orkney but more prone to cause damage than anywhere I lived before. I particularly remember one Sunday morning. I was in the office, Aelfleda and Wulfric in the kitchen. A massive lighting flashed across the entire sky. I do not remember the thunder.
But I do remember sitting at my desk and maybe some 20 cm above the phone appeared a bubble, thin-walled rather like a soap bubble, diameter approximately 7 cm. It was stable for a few seconds and glowing in a weak blue light. Then it burst with a soft popping sound just like a soap bubble.
I was still baffled when Aelfleda and Wulfric stormed up the stairs because blue lights had appeared above the range right after the lighting outside.
The reason why I remember that it was a Sunday is because I went to church later that day and a lot of people reported blue lights appearing, most of the time out of electrical outlets. These reports referred to houses miles apart within the island.
Some people had electronic equipment destroyed but we were okay. Telephones in the Kettletoft area was working erratically for several months afterwards.
I am fairly confident I, once again, saw indoor lightning effects in February 2016, but this time in the form of a bright flash.
Some additional comments
After writing down the account above, I discussed the events with other members of the family.
Stephen: I was in the kitchen and blue lights came out of the range. (So that was not Aelfleda and Wulfric after all.)
When I asked about details, shapes etc. he said it was like blue sparks being emitted briefly from the hotplate, probably making sparking noises. Our range is not connected to the electricity mains.
Dunstan remembers seeing the lights coming out of the range but no details. He reported the event at the time in the “News from Room 1” feature of the Sanday Sound. Finding this report should allow us to date the event fairly accurately. Aelfleda and Wulfric were in the girls‘ room. While all Wulfric remembers is that he saw a blue light in the fireplace, Aelfleda told that, like me, she saw a blue floating sphere, about the size of a tennis ball. (This happened at the same time but in a different room; she saw a different sphere than I did.) Asking about the colour, she said it was whitish-blue, so probably of a higher energy than the one I saw. The kids agree that it appeared in the fireplace and soon disappeared. The fireplace has a metal door, there was not a big hole to the chimney above.
Hit by lightning in Sanday
This is another experience from Sanday, this time the story of Liz Brown from Colligarth who was hit by the familiar form of lightning – when she was indoors. It happened in the 1960s, and this story was told to me by Liz herself in February 2016.
It was in the summer and very hot. There had been a thunderstorm with lots of forked lighting the day before and two of the cows had died, presumably hit by lightning. They were found lying dead next to a dyke. No mark was on the dead cows but a neighbour had seen a massive lightning bolt flash right over the roof of the house in their direction.
Because it was so hot, the window was propped open. Outside a fierce electric storm was raging. Inside, the family was eating dinner at mid-day. The mother was preparing pudding. The weather was so scary that the family briefly went into an inner corridor of the house for added safety. However, 12-year-old Liz was hungry and soon returned to her stew. Then a lightning bolt flashed through the open window, hit a large mirror on the wall, was reflected by it and then hit Liz who was thrown across the room and briefly knocked out. There was a sulphuric smell in the air.
Liz was scared but largely uninjured. What weakness was left in her arms had recovered by the next day. Message of the incident got out but was somewhat distorted as a Sanday girl was reported to have died after a lightning strike in the local newspaper in Oldham.
We would very much like to hear more stories of ball lightning. We are in contact with one researcher who has been gathering accounts over many years, and we hope to feature an article from him soon. Our email is orkneyscience@gmail.com.
