Our Skies Contain Sprites, Elves, Trolls, Pixies, Ghosts, and Gnomes

Have you heard of ball lightning? Maybe you have. It's known as an odd weather phenomenon, thought of as supernatural. The oldest written record of it may be an illuminated manuscript from an English monk in 1195, describing a fire-globe dropping out of a storm cloud that fell into the river Thames, [logged in medieval chronicle and rediscovered by modern researchers in 2022](https://cen.acs.org/environment/atmospheric-chemistry/What-is-ball-lightning-reality-or-myth/102/i12).

Humans have been watching hissing, drifting orbs of light appear out of thunderstorms since before we had the words to record them, and every culture used similar vocabulary: **spirits**.

In Japan, it's called [*hitodama*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitodama#Theories), translating to "human souls," the glowing balls thought to be spirits of the dead, untethered from their bodies and wandering. In English countrysides, the same lights were [*will-o'-the-wisps*](https://cen.acs.org/environment/water/will-o-wisps-microlighting-chemistry-mystery/103/web/2025/10), mischievous fairies leading travelers off the safe path and into the bog. In the Australian Outback, they're [*Min Min lights*](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-30/min-min-lights-seen-in-outback/10317058), fuzzy orbs that follow you at night.

In Argentina and Chile, the Mapuche call them [*Anchimayen*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchimayen), the souls of the dead, mischievous spirit creatures appearing as small glowing lights in the Andes. In 17th-century Devon, England, a fireball tore through a church during a service, [the Widecombe fireball](https://earlymodernscribbling.com/2023/02/06/piecing-together-the-story-a-case-study-in-17th-century-news-reporting/), and was understood by villagers as either the Devil, or God's judgment on a congregation caught sinning at prayer. A century after that, the occultist Aleister Crowley described a "dazzling globe of electric fire" appearing in the cottage where he was staying, [which he claimed shocked his hand slightly before it exploded](https://www.britannica.com/story/does-ball-lightning-exist).

Scientifically, ball lightning[^1] is described as a hissing, glowing sphere. It can be red, orange, yellow, or blue. Sometimes trailing the smell of sulphur, appearing during or just after a thunderstorm, drifting through the air or hovering close to the ground, and vanishes after only a few seconds, [sometimes with a pop or an explosive crack](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/ball-lightning).

[^1]: Some of the above cultural legends and folklore are hypothesized to be ball lightning, others have different theories.

Even now, there is still no single accepted physical explanation for it. Plasma models treat it as a self-contained, temporarily sta