Ball lighting - a mundane UFO explanation

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

Ball lightning has been described as transparent, translucent, multicolored, evenly lit, radiating flames, filaments or sparks, with shapes that vary between spheres, ovals, tear-drops, rods, or disks.[12]
Ball lightning is often erroneously identified as St. Elmo's fire. They are separate and distinct phenomena.[13]
The balls have been reported to disperse in many different ways, such as suddenly vanishing, gradually dissipating, being absorbed into an object, "popping," exploding loudly, or even exploding with force, which is sometimes reported as damaging.[10] Accounts also vary on their alleged danger to humans, from lethal to harmless.

I became aware of ball lightning when I was doing a UFO project at school and it came up as a possible explanation for some UFOs.  As far as I know, it is something of a mystery in itself and therefore quite fascinating.  I might look more into it later.

I became aware of ball lightning when I was doing a UFO project at school and it came up as a possible explanation for some UFOs.  As far as I know, it is something of a mystery in itself and therefore quite fascinating.  I might look more into it later.

I saw one as a child.

I saw one as a child.

Oh Wow!  You are so lucky.  Off topic a little but I had a weird experience once.  I dreamed as a child that I was watching cloud to cloud lightning which I had never heard of in reality so it was a new one on me. I felt euphoric in the dream and it somehow felt like more than just a dream.  I never mentioned it to anybody.  Many years later, as a teenager, my friend told me that one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen was cloud to cloud lightning.  I didn't know if he was telling me the truth but it it caught me off guard.  I would love to see ball lightning.

I also really wanted to see ball lightning as a kid.

I'm not sure these really would account for many UFO cases though, as I don't think the movement patterns would be that similar?

I also really wanted to see ball lightning as a kid.

I'm not sure these really would account for many UFO cases though, as I don't think the movement patterns would be that similar?

I don’t know that either – it was some of the wording in a post by nbtruthman that made me think of ball lightning.

I believe it was around 1985 when I witnessed a ball of lightning traveling above ground level in a horizontal direction during a heavy thunderstorm in the middle of the night.

At the time, I didn’t realize I had seen a highly controversial phenomenon. It was only several years later, when I read in a newspaper that ball lightning had finally been scientifically accepted, that I even learned the term 'ball lightning.' Actually, it was today that I read on Wikipedia there is still no real explanation for the phenomenon. I have never looked it up before.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

Any even superficial perusal of some of the classic UFO encounters will show that ball lightning is simply untenable as a plausible explanation.

Any even superficial perusal of some of the classic UFO encounters will show that ball lightning is simply untenable as a plausible explanation for most.

FTFY.