Myths and over-claims

The death of Georg Wilhelm Richmann

A citation classic in ball lightning literature, Keul writes, is the case of Georg Wilhelm Richmann, a Baltic German physicist and member of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, who, during work on atmospheric electricity, was electrocuted in 1753. Keul 2021 From an investigation protocol with autopsy results (Anonymous, 1755, pp. 64–68), Keul writes, it is obvious that it was a conventional lightning accident caused by a non-grounded conductor. Keul 2021 However, a popular engraving pictured a lightning ball that hit Richmann. Keul adds that ball lightning acquired a deadly and destructive popular image fed by injuries and damage caused by ordinary cloud-ground strokes. Keul 2021

Other easy over-claims

According to some reports in that article, Nikola Tesla was able to make ball lightning in his lab in Colorado Springs in 1899/1900, but if he did create it, he did not describe his methods in a way that has allowed anyone since to reproduce his work. RMetS

A 1638 church storm is sometimes told as if the case were settled. The RMetS wording is "reportedly."

The RMetS article recounts the Great Thunderstorm at a church in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon, on 21 October 1638: four people reportedly died, and approximately 60 were injured, when a 2.4 m ball of fire was described as striking and entering the church. RMetS

Laboratory plasmas are sometimes presented as if ball lightning had been made to order. The researchers quoted here are more careful.

Dr Lindsay said, in the article’s wording, “I don’t think what we’ve created is lightning,” and that ball lightning is used almost generically for phenomena not described by normal lightning, bead lightning, St Elmo’s fire or aurora. RMetS

And a single "typical size" is often repeated as if every good source used the same figure.