Ball o' lightning

[Frankie Stapleton]

Friday morning in the predawn hours I saw a huge ball of light streak across the sky followed instantly by an incredible explosion. I live in upper Nanawale and thought it was a meteorite or the North Koreans practicing their weaponry!

Within a few seconds all power went down. It was unbelievably quiet and still. Then in about 5 minutes, a terrific thunderstorm hit, with considerable lightning. So at least that made sense and since the power was off and it was pitch-dark, I went back to sleep.

Around 9:30 I went to the Nanawale longhouse and they told me 3 telephone poles in a line of 4 had been struck by lightning at Forest and Kehau roads in the subdivision, which coincided w/where the ball of lightning appeared to me. Glenn, who contracts for downed trees, etc. in Nanawale was at the office and showed pix of 3 poles, the first two totally gone halfway down and shattered. He said one pole, the 3rd in the lineup, was skipped and a 4th pole was likewise splintered. I called Helco to tell them about the ball of lightning but it didn't seem to matter. I'm just grateful they got the power back up around 10 a.m. and that all my electronics didn't get fried by this incredible act of nature.

Two friends, one living close to the ocean in HPP between M and P recalled she had seen a thunderstorm approaching from the north across the water as she'd gotten up to shut the windows. Then she saw the ball of lightning take off and heard a huge boom. We live like 10 miles apart! Another friend living near the water in Hwn Beaches also saw/heard it.

No mention of this ball o lightning anywhere.....did anyone here witness it? Jes curious....niele, in other words! ;D

[james weatherford]

Our helpers at the farm in Pahoa (makai of bypass, near to Nanawale Estates) said a bolt of lightening awoke everyone in the house. Almost certainly same one.

[dragon2k]

The whole house lit up as if every light switch was flipped on at once. Except it was five in the morning and everyone was sleeping. My still sleeping brain wondered for a second and then the thunder struck. Amazing stuff!

[Opihikaobob]

I was waking up though my eyes were still closed and I saw this flas through my closed eyelids , thinking then that it was just me rotating my eyes, then I heard the positively huge thunder clap.
With the original posters description I thought about the things I had read about the Secret Space War in Veterans today articles here:http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/12/01/secret-space-war/
This is the first of at least 9 articles by VT , Just google secret space wars and you can see them all.
Also when having coffee out that morning I talked with someone who had told of friends seeing the lighting and there remark was that it was a strange colored flash , which I have seen as well . Now I am online and I came across this :http://youtu.be/6zb783kuHsU which is a fascinating story that will appeal strongly to anyone who considers themselves "spiritual", especially Christians

[shave_ice]

I live in Nanawale too and heard/saw it. In fact it seems to have fried my modem/router. I just got back online now. I thought a tree had come crashing down right outside my window. It was like Thor himself was above my head. And the lightning lit up the whole room. I've never heard thunder that loud before and I've seen some crazy thunder/lightning storms during the summer growing up on the mainland. The difference with those is that you can see/hear the storms coming from miles away. This storm sounded like it came out of nowhere, landed above my house and then moved away. Weird.

[jackson]

I don't care if this gets me booted: Ophikibob, You are a racist, anti-semitic asshole. I have seen some obscene and disgusting things you have posted all over the Internet. If you are on this board I don't want to be anyway. I think you are the worst of humanity. My consolation is that you live with absurd and insane conspiracy theories that have the Jewish people running the world and little spaceships and government spy drones who have nothing better that to keep an eye on you.

[Frankie Stapleton]

Shave Ice, the ball of lightning hit AHEAD of the thunderstorm's arrival. You must be closer to the Forest-Kehau road epicenter than me as I was sure my electronics would be fried but I lucked out this time. Haven't been so lucky in the past. If I'd known about an approaching storm, I would have unplugged everything because in spite of the best surge protectors, electrical spikes can be beyond their limits.

I have seen a ball of lightning once here before, during storms in the eruption area. Friends of mine had one in their home in Kona that bounced around inside before frying their phone and phone line. They freaked, needless to say.

[shave_ice]

Interesting. I live on Ali'i. It must of passed right over my overhead from the north.

[steve1]

Halfway down Maku'u an incredibly bright flash lit up the north view from our living room and I counted to 10 before the big boom (then dogs tried to crawl into my lap) 10 seconds should be 2 miles from the flash to the bang, but HPP is more that 2 miles to Nanawale. The rumble did last a while though.

[ericlp]

I can't remember what I was doing but the first thunder was a strange one. I have never heard it that way. It was like a friggen jet plane flying over. At first I thought it was the beginning of an earthquake (a BIG ONE)... But I found it odd that it was even (thunder) then as I laid in bed wide awake at the point I saw more flashes and normal thunder sounds and figured it was just a fluke random flash that somehow randomly flashed above hawaiian beaches someplace.

That is amazing. I'd like to see the pics of the power poles. I stayed awake for another half hour kinda waiting for another boom like that and even went outside to look around ... Things were pretty normal.