It has been mistaken for UFOs, wrecked havoc on homes and eluded rational explanation for centuries.

But now ball lightning, a large, mysterious glow that appears during thunderstorms, has been captured on video for the first time.

Chinese researchers managed to accidently record the elusive glowing orbs during a thunderstorm in Qinghai when they were mapping radiation. Scientists have observed ball lightning for the first time in nature. Pictured is the spectrum of a cloud-to-ground lightning strike and of the ball lightning it generated. The ball lightning is the white dot at the far left, and its spectrum is the slightly brighter band of colors at the foot of the irregularly shaped main lightning spectrum Appearing to be 16ft (5m) wide, the glow only made an appearance for less than two seconds, said researchers from Northwestern Normal University in Lanzhou, China.

Video and spectrographs of the 2012 storm are thought to be the first ever scientific recordings of ball lightning in nature, according to the New Scientist.

Click Here To Read More