The most common type of UFO reported in Indiana this summer is the Orange Ball of Light or OBOL. OBOLs appear, as the name implies, as a bright orange sphere that seems to be burning or smoldering. They travel slowly and lazily across the sky usually with the wind and only last a minute or two. They seem, at least in the cases that I have investigated, to appear most frequently at night under cloud cover or overcast. Certainly some of these reports are distant airplanes slightly obscured by smog so that the navigation lights are blurred together. But many are sighted by reliable observers with excellent eyesight and with airplanes clearly visible in the same section of sky. Dozens of these have been reported this summer. Many more over the past several years.
Exactly what these objects are is a matter of debate within the UFO community. Some investigators believe that these are controlled devices or vehicles. Linda Moulton Howe has reported that flaming balls of light accompany cattle mutalations.
I suspect that OBOLs, at least the variety that appear in Indiana, are a natural phenomena, perhaps electrostatic in nature similer to ball lightening. Recently a number of new aspects of lightening have been verified by science. Lightening is now known to take huge etherial forms called elves, jets, and sprites that travel thousands of feet above a Thunderstorm . Lightnening might have other forms not yet identified.
There is also the possibility that OBOLs are related to earth lights, a phenomena not yet understood but beginning to get scientific recognition. Earthquake lights, which may or not be the same as earth lights, have been scientifically recorded both before and after an earthquake and are believed to be generated by geologic forces. None of these luminous bodies are fully understood.
So far we have no idea what OBOLS might be and we have no good clues. There have been many brief observations but few good pictures and even fewer good theories. Investigations continue.
©2010 David A. Henninger
The one I witnessed was on a clear calm night with no moon. In fact I had noticed just before the incedent that I could see the milky way that night. I try to keep an open mind about what it could have been, but its very hard for me to think of it as a natural phenomena. It looked like a craft of some kind to me.
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