A new model of ball lightning

Summary form only given. Ball lightning is a fireball or plasmoid observed as a luminous sphere, or occasionally as a cylindrical form called bead lightning, in the atmosphere or inside a plane, a submarine, or a house. It ranges in diameter from several to several tens of centimeters. The ball can be white, yellow, orange, red, or blue. It can last from a second or less up to several minutes. Normally the ball moves horizontally, but sometimes it moves vertically through the air with a speed of one tenth to several meters per second. Among a variety of theories, a number of continuing external energy-source models could be renovated to a rather simple physical form, based on two novel concepts of electric reconnection and critical velocity. The author discusses this.