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Skepticism has accompanied ball lightning research since its beginning in the 1830s. In this chapter, we will see the main arguments of the ball lightning skeptics and how they can be falsified. The often-cited suggestion that ball lightning observations are due to afterimages is easily falsified, but other hypotheses such as lightning-induced hallucinations require a bit more work. Lightning researchers like Berger, who use instrumented towers or rocket-triggered lightning, work under experimental conditions that are different from the situation with the highest production probability for ball lightning: strong positive strokes to ground. As a result, they haven’t had the chance to observe ball lightning, which made them very skeptical about its existence.

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Some People Just Won’t Believe It: The Skeptic’s View

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Herbert Boerner

摘要

Skepticism has accompanied ball lightning research since its beginning in the 1830s. In this chapter, we will see the main arguments of the ball lightning skeptics and how they can be falsified. The often-cited suggestion that ball lightning observations are due to afterimages is easily falsified, but other hypotheses such as lightning-induced hallucinations require a bit more work. Lightning researchers like Berger, who use instrumented towers or rocket-triggered lightning, work under experimental conditions that are different from the situation with the highest production probability for ball lightning: strong positive strokes to ground. As a result, they haven’t had the chance to observe ball lightning, which made them very skeptical about its existence.