Ball Lightning Caused By Magnetic Hallucinations

KentuckyFC writes "Transcranial magnetic stimulation involves placing a human in a rapidly changing magnetic field powerful enough to induce eddy currents in the brain. Focus the field in the visual cortex, for example, and the induced eddys cause the subject to 'see' lights that appear as discs and lines. Move the field within the cortex and the subject sees the lights move too. Physicists have calculated that the fields associated with certain kinds of multiple lightning strikes are powerful enough to induce the same kind of visual hallucinations in anybody unlucky enough to be within 200 meters or so. These fields ought to induce hallucinations that would take the form of luminous lines and balls that float in front of the subject's eyes, an effect that would explain observations otherwise classed as ball lightning, say the scientists."

FDA Response

[bughunter]

Feds will ban Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation on the assumption that it can be used recreationally.

What the article fails to address

[Monkeedude1212]

Is how effective Tin foil might be at stopping the hallucinations. They haven't stopped since I started wearing my hat, I'm beginning to doubt they are hallucinations like my doctor tells me.

Oh No!

[WrongSizeGlass]

Now that they know how to create this phenomenon, this fad could catch on and lure our children into magnetic hallucination parties! Won't somebody think of the children!

Scissors

[MrEricSir]

Perhaps this explains the appearance of a giant pair of scissors in the sky when performing the iron pyramid experiment.

Can't be hallucinations

[buback]

A whole branch of my family was fathered by ball lightning! Happened back in the Great Storm of 1806. Granted, they always were the black sheep at the family reunions, but they were certainly real!

Now tell me that's a hallucination. I dare you!

Re:FDA Response

[Philip K Dickhead]

Magnified transcrotal what?

Re:Doesn't explain...

[Em Emalb]

Oh wow, I feel so proud, my first ever [citation needed]

Do I get a Slashdot "Achievement" for that?

I didn't expect anyone to take my comment seriously. Every video ever seen showing "ball lightning" appears to be either edited heavily or easily explained away as something else.

Carry on about your day, good sir.

Re:idea != fact

[eln]

Ball Lightening Caused by Magnetic Hallucinations

It's clearly a bogus theory. In my experience, ball lightening is usually caused by filling it up with helium.

Re:What the article fails to address

[fahrbot-bot]

Summary: Physicists have calculated that the fields associated with certain kinds of multiple lightning strikes are powerful enough to induce the same kind of visual hallucinations in anybody unlucky enough to be within 200 meters or so.

Question: Is how effective Tin foil might be at stopping the hallucinations. They haven't stopped since I started wearing my hat, I'm beginning to doubt they are hallucinations like my doctor tells me.

I'm not a doctor, but I predict undesirable side-effects from the interaction between your Tinfoil hat and multiple lightning strikes...

This is your brain.

[osu-neko]

This is your brain on lightning. Get the picture?

Re:That answers that, for me at least

[CorporateSuit]

He'll certainly have a lot to answer for if it turns out those spinning disks are really just the uplifting, smiling faces of pure-hearted children!

Re:idea != fact

[largesnike]

From 'interesting idea' to stated fact in record time!

almost, Saddam's WMDs are still in front by a fair margin

Re:Doesn't explain...

[evilviper]

my great grandmother used to tell the story of the time ball lightning broke the living room window, did a circle around the room and went back out, leaving scorch marks on the ceiling.

Your grandmother has a Tyler Durden complex?

Re:Doesn't explain...

[deglr6328]

Oooh yeah I'm really religiously "jumping" to conclusions. We've had DECADES to flesh this one out and the evidence is not there. The onus is on the claimant to prove the phenomenon exists, not on me to prove it doesn't. The religious ones are the ones who take flaky anecdotes and blurry photos as real evidence and reject any skepticism about their credulity as "hasty". No.

Re:Scissors

[safetyinnumbers]

Perhaps this explains the appearance of a giant pair of scissors in the sky when performing the iron pyramid experiment.

I'd forgotten about that! Maybe it also explains the giant pliers on Google Street View: [google.co.uk]

Re:Doesn't explain...

[fractoid]

...let me also point out that LSD doesn't explain real spiders.

HOLY SHIT THOSE THINGS ARE REAL?

Re:Doesn't explain...

[Myopic]

at first he thought it might be a UFO but then realized it was definitely from this earth

Dude, that's just what they want you to think!

Re:Ministory

[TedRiot]

Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal. I was terrified, alone in that darkness. Slowly daylight crept in through the bandages, and I could see, but something else had changed inside of me. That day I had my first headache.

Re:Doesn't explain...

[DeusExMach]

When I was growing up on my grandpa's dairy farm, he used to tell us kids not to pee on the electric fence. When HE was pressed for further citation, his response was, indeed, "Ball lightning."

Re:Doesn't explain...

[tehcyder]

Remember, electricity follows the path of least resistance and copper in power lines provides far less resistance than does air, so perhaps it's just able to "live" longer with power lines around

Don't anthropomorphize electricity, it makes it mad.

Re:Doesn't explain...

[Anonymous Coward]

> We've had DECADES to flesh this one out and the evidence is not there
a possibly fake observation hasn't been documented in incontrovertible ways after decades, therefore it does not exist. Galileo would be proud.