Top 12 Most Famous Ball Lightning Sightings in History: The 5th Remains Unexplained to This Day

8. The Headmaster's Office Incident (1967)

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One of the most well-documented occurrences of indoor ball lightning, a stunning event happened at a Lisbon, Portugal school on September 15, 1967. The headmaster and a few other instructors were in the administrative office during a strong thunderstorm when they saw a brilliant sphere of 15 centimeters in diameter come through an open window. Described as bluish-white, the light ball drifted across the room at roughly head height, traveling in an apparently intentional path. Witnesses said the ball seemed to be slowly rotating and had a faint hissing sound. It went across the office and passed a wooden bookcase without damaging anything or starting the books to catch fire. The most remarkable feature of this event was its length and the ball's interaction with the surroundings. The sphere moved among objects in the room for about two minutes, at one point exactly between two astonished teachers. The incident started when the ball suddenly vanished with a loud crack as it neared an electrical socket, leaving behind a strong ozone smell and momentarily darkening the building. The great degree of education of the witnesses and the thorough, consistent narratives they offered make this case especially relevant to researchers. Having a background in physics, the headmaster made detailed notes and observations even trying to graph the ball's route across the office. Because it offers unusual understanding of the behavior of ball lightning in an indoor environment, atmospheric scientists and physicists have researched this incident carefully. The discovery of the ball passing through solid objects without burning has disproved current ideas regarding the nature of ball lightning and generated fresh hypotheses concerning its composition and energy state. Moreover, the Headmaster's Office Incident has become a major source of reference in debates on the possible link between ball lightning and conventional electrical systems, therefore motivating study on the interaction of the phenomenon with man-made electromagnetic fields.