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Ball Lightning Caused By Magnetic Hallucinations
KentuckyFC writes "Transcranial magnetic stimulation involves placing a human in a rapidly changing magnetic field powerful enough to induce eddy currents in the brain. Focus the field in the visual cortex, for example, and the induced eddys cause the subject to 'see' lights that appear as discs and lines. Move the field within the cortex and the subject sees the lights move too. Physicists have calculated that the fields associated with certain kinds of multiple lightning strikes are powerful enough to induce the same kind of visual hallucinations in anybody unlucky enough to be within 200 meters or so. These fields ought to induce hallucinations that would take the form of luminous lines and balls that float in front of the subject's eyes, an effect that would explain observations otherwise classed as ball lightning, say the scientists."
For those that suffer from migraines, these lights and balls should be familiar as "aura", or scintilating scotoma. For migraineurs, these lights last longer because they are caused by changing bloodflow to the occipital lobe over a longer period of time. It most assuredly activates the same neurons that this magnetic stimulation of neurons produces. I would not be surprised of reports of concomitant parosmia, or olfactory hallucinations, with the display of ball-lightning caused by magnetic fields.
I looked on youtube. The second hit seems to be missing for me, my browser is reporting the swf as not found. The third one in Saudi Arabia appears to be the lightning moving along the power lines. I suspect that these guys in TFA could be right, but that the term ball lightning is ambiguous, referring to several different phenomena.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
A ball went from the warehouse floor in to the office area (I believe it went through a wall to do this) and stopped above an employee's head, where it dissipated suddenly. I just can't see this entirely being a hallucination if it can be tracked with your eyes.
Actually, this ability to be "tracked" is common in color/light optical hallucinations that are produced in the "front end" of your brain's visual processing, as opposed to more life-like and realistic (i.e. a deceased relative) visual hallucinations that occur father down the image-processing pipeline.
You can demonstrate this on your own: Look just to the side of a small, bright light source for a few seconds, then look away, ideally towards a blank wall or other plain surface. (Don't stare into the sun or a laser or anything... I don't want people responding with "OMG now I'm blind!") If you did not focus directly on the light source to begin with, the "echo" of the light should appear slightly off center. As you move your eyes and/or head to try and focus on the echo, it will move away as the spot is fixed with respect to your retina, giving you the illusion of being able to "track" this visual phenomenon across a room or other space.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
I think the third video in that list you are talking about showing "BL" in Saudi Arabia is very important for everyone to see. How many times have we heard of people having BL sightings around power lines or "following power lines"? Frequently! And what does that video show? NOT BL! It's just arcing between two of the power lines that's traveling down the line Jacob's-ladder-like, probably due to wind. Was it initiated by lightning? Maybe, but it is not BL at all. People trust their senses and their assumptions way too much.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
We don't at all. The strongest statement the original paper makes is
"Lightning electromagnetic pulse induced transcranial magnetic stimulation of phosphenes in the visual cortex is concluded to be a plausible interpretation of a large class of reports on luminous perceptions during thunderstorms."
just plausible. It's the editors that decided to publish it as if it were accepted fact.
http://notanumber.net/