early 70s? PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING AND THINK ABOUT IT BEFORE ANSWERING, THIS REALLY HAPPENED AND IT BAFFLES ME TO THIS DAY, right after sunset i was walking alone through the desert to my friends house, suddenly i little fireball about the size of a marball came out of thin air about 3 feet in front of me about waist high it made a sizzle sound arched acrossed right in front of me and fizzled into the ground,it left a little black mark on the dirt, the place where i lived in the desert was right on the san andreas fault and we got alot of earthquakes, it didnt come from the sky, it came out of nowhere traveled a short distance in a horizontal path, about a foot, and arched then went down, some say it was a small ball lightning, what do you think,, and no i dont do drugs,, thanks to all those science minds that answer

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Based on your first description I would call it ball lightning as well. I decided to do a quick search just to be sure. The site I included describes ball lightning like this:

Ball lightning is a phenomenon where a luminous sphere, only several centimeters in diameter, floats through the air near the ground. It lasts a few seconds, and then dissipates or explodes.

That sounds like what you described.

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