Great Balls of Fire

I remember as a child finding a dusty book in a forgotten room and discovering a page devoted to mysterious electrical phenomena, with colour graphic illustrations. The only ones I can remember are 'St Elmo's Fire' and 'Ball Lightning'

The first of these was illustrated by a dramatic picture of a classic square-rigger with the ends of its spars aglow - looking a bit like the sparklers I loved on 'Bonfire Night'. I'm sure this was presented as a mysterious, semi-mythical phenomenon, like selkies and phantom ships. It is well documented, though, and seemingly fairly well understood, an explicable natural occurrence based on sound science

My recollection of the 'ball lightning' picture and text is much hazier - it's likely that both were more tentative in their depiction. I do remember it saying or showing that ball lightning - a glowing sphere, as bright as a light bulb, moving through the air like a balloon or soap bubble, anything up to basketball sized - could occur or travel indoors, which made it feel particularly threatening to my young mind, leaving a lasting impression

I'm surprised to discover that there is still no clear explanation, and very little firm evidence, of this rare oddity, only theories. I heard a radio item today in which a sober, quietly-spoken scientist from Texas was appealing to people to report sightings so that more research can happen. He was quite frank in admitting how little science knows about the subject - and indeed his first step is to assemble enough data to convince some of his colleagues it is real at all

This is definitely not it. Unlike ball lightning, I know exactly where the energy to generate this light comes from: our familiar sun, bouncing light off a moon that is 50,000km closer, 14% brighter and 30% bigger than it is when it is at its furthest point of travel - a so-called 'super-moon' - also, being the October full moon, it is a 'Hunter's moon'. Later, when it had fully gone below the horizon, I visited the orchard. I saw three cats, a buzzard, a seven-spot ladybird and several spiders - hunters all - who had heeded the call. There was also a pheasant with a hunted expression