While trying to solve the UFO mystery we decided to look into natural forms of light phenomena produced right here on our home planet. So we looked up luminous phenomena in our encyclopedia of scientific anomalies, and you will never guess what we found. It looks like we can solve this whole question right here on earth. What is responsible for generating UFO reports? Ball lightning.
Ball lightning is recognized by science but eludes all attempts at explanation. It is a luminous, spherical mass that can exist in any weather. It can change color, shape, size, direction and velocity. It can be as small as a pea or as big as a house. Ball lightning has been seen phasing through solid objects such as walls, windows, hillsides and cliffs. It can fade silently away or violently explode. It can appear as a single ball or as a collection of lights flying in formation. Author Paul Devereaux asserts that in the daylight, ball lightning appears metallic and silver, like a blob of mercury or air bubbles under water.
Ball lightning has a lot of interesting cousins in the scientific literature of bizarre light, plasma and optical effects. This family includes earthquake lights, slow low-altitude luminous meteors, sky flashes, expanding balls of light (EBLs) and a host of marine light displays including light bands, light wheels, expanding rings and whirling crescents. Devereaux lumps all these together under the term "Earth Lights," but for simplicity's sake we might as well avoid introducing any special terminology and just say ball lightning.
Neither ball lightning nor any of its weird brethren phenomena are well-understood. But when you consider that Earth is a giant electromagnet plowing through the vast magnetic fields of space and the solar wind, it does not seem so far-fetched that the planet should generate a little electrified plasma here and there. There is also a theory advanced by Michael Persinger in which large-scale tectonic strain-fields generate light phenomena through "piezoelectricity" in the earth's crust. Piezoelectricity can be demonstrated on a small scale by striking certain rocks together in the dark to produce sparks and glows. (Petrified wood works nicely.)
These homegrown phenomena can explain the alien abduction experience. The power of magnetic fields to alter brain function is well documented. Persinger has demonstrated in peer-reviewed journals that waking dreams and tactile hallucinations can easily be induced by applying electrical impulses. In some cases, therefore, a close encounter with UFO-like electrified plasma could evoke incredibly realistic mental imagery. This is a reasonable explanation for claimed ghost sightings too, and possibly some poltergeist phenomena—not to mention those occasional mass sightings of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The most wondrous possibility predicted by these theories is that some of these light forms may be imbued with self-awareness—that is, they might be alive. Witnesses have described ball lightning acting "curious" and "inquisitive," seemingly sniffing around the edges of a room, or acting playful and mischievous. We must face the possibility that we share our planet with these lifeforms. They are aliens from our backyard.
Recommended Reading: Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena by William R. Corliss; Space-Time Transients and Unusual Events by Michael Persinger and Gyslaine Lafreniere; Earth Lights Revelation by Paul Devereaux
(Versions of this piece appear in our book Gonzo Science: Anomalies, Heresies, and Conspiracies and on the Gonzo Science CD.)