January
29
/ 2022
A pair of academics from Durham University in the United Kingdom have discovered an 827-year-old reference to an unusual weather-related phenomenon in an obscure medieval English text. While scrutinizing the monastery chronicles of a 12th century Benedictine monk named Gervase, who was assigned to the Christ Church Cathedral Priory in Canterbury, physicist Brian Tanner and historian Giles Gasper came upon a striking description of an apparent manifestation of ball lightning. This is the label given to mysterious shining orbs of light that are reported to sometimes appear in the sky, near the ground, and even indoors just before, during, or after thunderstorms. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"93782","attributes":{"alt":"Extract from the Chronicle of Gervase of Canterbury (MS R.4.11, p.324; Trinity College) where the medieval monk describes
