FROM THE CLOUDS

Evening Star, Issue 22072, 4 July 1935, Page 5

FROM THE CLOUDS

THE WAYS OF FIREBALLS NATURE UNKNOWN What is a fireball? Ancient science simply said there was no such thing, a convenient way of disposing of a puzzling question. Most of us would say today with some truth that a fireball is a kind of ball lightning that falls to earth and is liable to explode (says a writer in the Melbourne ‘ Age ’). Scientists have collected a large amount of knowledge about these heavenly spheres, one of the globes has actually been photographed—by an American-, of course—and learned physicists have read erudite papers on the subject to deep-brpwed savants. Yet to this day no one can say precisely what a fireball is, why it falls to earth, what is the nature of the explosive energy inside it, or what causes that energy to explode, Australia, it will be remembered, had an unusual experience with fireballs recently. On April 13 last both Sydney and Melbourne were honoured by a visit just so that neither ..could be jealous of the other. One may be excused some mild outcry of astonishment on seeing a fireball. How odd to see a sphere descend from the heavens, giving off sparks, humming or hissing; and tumbling over itself like a tenrfis ball struck with over-spin! And the fireballs have odd ways. They drift and bounce slowly; they show a fondness for rooms, nosing about the furniture, and lolling over like pets at play, they give off sparks and smoke, and they may split up into two or more spheres. If that was all there was to a fireball one might, the first burst of astonishment over, contemplate it with wonder and delight. But the thing is hot as innocent as it seems. At any moment it may explode and bring the house down about one’s ears. The fireball that struck a house in Morton road, Centennial Park,, Sydney, last April caused hundreds of pounds’ worth of damage. It entered through an open balcony doorway, and fizzed fierily in a shower of sparks before it exploded with a terrific roar. It blew m a tile roof and damaged the ceilings of several rooms. Less disastrous in its effects was the fireball which visited Hampton, Victoria, on the same day. This ball, which came from the direction of the sea, obliquely struck the turret of the Church of Christ. Though the crack of the explosion startled the whole district, the ball did little damage beyond fus-5 ing the lighting system. A WEIRD STORY. One of the weirdest fireball stories ever recorded was that of a tailor who was sitting in his room in Paris on July 5, 1852. The astonished tailor saw a fireball descend down the chimney. It then moved slowly about the room, rolling over itself and gambolling about the furniture legs for all. the world like a kitten at play. Then it rose and floated about the embarrassed tailor’s head. After other _ strange movements it seemed to the tailor that the ball “ wanted to get, out of the room.” (He appears by this time to have thought ; it possessed of a subhuman intelligence.) “It could riot see the aperture'in the chimney because it was pasted oyer,” saicLthoiailor. However, it “ found ” the aperture eventually, and if the sartorial artist is to be believed, it unpasted the opening and went up the chimney, there to burst with a dreadful explosion and bring down a rain of bricks into the tailor’s room.

An Abbe records that at Ginepreto, Italy, in 1789, a fireball played a remarkable prank. It descended from the sky, rolled across to where a little girl was playing, and gently rolled up her leg. “ Billowing out her skirts like an opened umbrella,” wrote the Abbe, “ the ball, still bright and blohular in shape, escaped from the girl’s dress and drifted off into the_ air with a crackling noise.” The girl was unharmed. In Uraisk, Russia, in 1901, fireballs took one of their infrequent victims. A young woman was seated in the kitchen with her back to the open door. After a clap of thunder a ball of fire entered the room and touched the girl lightly on the neck. It passed into an inner room, where it burst with a loud report, greatly damaging walls and furniture and killing tho girl instantly. BLOWN TO BITS. A French doctor n'amed Martinet was blown to bits when a fireball struck him on the head, and a quaint drawing taken from aii illustrated English magazine of early last century shows how the combined house and barn of a French peasant was blown up, killing three persons. ' A fireball played a curious prank in the home of R. Conkey, of Peoria, U.S.A. At the height of a thunderstorm it rolled into the dining room, where the family was at lunch. Then in a leisurely way it rolled around tho table and out of the door without damaging the house or furniture. However, Mrs Conkey was rendered unconscious for two hours and her daughter’s arm was paralysed. In San Marcial, New Mexico, three fireballs dropped down a chimney and exploded. ~ One inmate was stunned, another had a shoe torn from her foot, and a third was burned.

Not until this century, when a paper was read to the Academy of Sciences, Paris, by M. Mathias, was science satisfied that fireballs existed as distinct from lightning. The balls generally, but not ahvays, appear during thunderstorms. Their light is generally bluish, though a few red ones have been noted, and there is one account of a yellow fireball. Generally the balls explode with a deafening report. The terrific energy pent up inside the balls seems to be touched off by contact with hard, bulky substances, and the balls seem to bounce or roll safely over softer, smoother objects. As to size, the fireball varies from a terrifying globe of 40ft in diameter to a sphere no bigger than a marble. Sometimes many of them appear at one time, as in a tornado that devastated Louisville, Kentucky, in 1890. In .one respect all eye-witnesses agree. The weight of the balls is almost identical with that of the same volume of air. In other words, the balls drift along lazily in the wind or bounce gently, along the earth exactly as a heavy soap bubble would do. That the fulminating matter of which the balls are composed is nothing more or less than ozone is the theory advanced by Professor \V. M. Thornton, of Armstrong College, Newcastle, England. Two factors, Professor Thornton thinks, powerfully suggest this. One is the typical “ ozoneish ” blue light emitted by the balls. The other is the strong smell of ozone that accompanies them. But this is only .theory, and physics admits it knows little or nothing definite about the nature of fireballs.