Lights of the World Week 6: Naga Fireballs

Photo by J A Forbes at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beung_Fai_Phraya_Nag_(187)_ball.JPG

The Fall 2017 Lights of the World Fitness Challenge encourages participants to be physically active an average of at least 20 minutes/day.

Week 6, starting October 1 and ending October 7, features the Naga fireballs, also known as Mekong lights or bung fai paya nak, glowing balls that seem to rise from the Mekong River. Some are as large as a basketball. This unusual reddish light show generally peaks late October. Sometimes thousands of these fireballs are seen in one night around the time of the Phayanak Festival.

Could these glowing orbs be thrown by a legendary serpent that lives in the Mekong River? Could they result from a natural phenomenon such as plasma orbs called St. Elmo's Fire revered by sailors for centuries? Perhaps they are phosphine gas bubbles resulting from a marshy environment. Or maybe they are simply the result of Laotian soldiers firing tracer rounds from flare guns from the other side of the river.

Have you ever seen Naga fireballs, St. Elmo's Fire, or plasma orbs?

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;" 1 Peter 2:9