Append-only living-dossier updates for “Qinghai, 2012: The Ball Lightning That Got Caught on a Spectrograph”.https://anomaly-ledger.pages.dev/en-ushttps://anomaly-ledger.pages.dev/cases/qinghai-ball-lightning-spectrum-2012/https://anomaly-ledger.pages.dev/cases/qinghai-ball-lightning-spectrum-2012/One late-evening thunderstorm in July 2012, a team studying ordinary lightning on China's Qinghai Plateau recorded a glowing ball rising from a ground strike about 900 meters away. Their spectrum found silicon, iron and calcium, the stuff of soil. It's the best instrumental record of natural ball lightning, and it doesn't settle what ball lightning is.Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTPublishedhttps://anomaly-ledger.pages.dev/cases/qinghai-ball-lightning-spectrum-2012/#update-1https://anomaly-ledger.pages.dev/cases/qinghai-ball-lightning-spectrum-2012/#update-1THIN (abstracts only). Logged 13 Oct 2026; not new research in 2026. Two follow-up papers share authors with the original 2014 Physical Review Letters report (Cen, Yuan, Xue). The ledger has read only their abstracts. In Physics of Plasmas (4 Nov 2022), An et al. re-examined the high-speed spectra of the 2012 Qinghai object. They describe a mostly steady brightness with a regular oscillation: soil elements (Si, Fe, Ca lines) give most of the light, and air elements (N, O lines) drive the oscillation. Temperature estimates depend on which lines are used, from 7,170–11,410 K for oxygen lines down to a mean of 2,700 K for the continuum. The authors read this as a hotter energy-source core. Earlier, Wang et al. in Applied Physics Letters (Feb 2018) estimated a peak luminous intensity of about 1.24×10^5 cd early in the event, and about 5.9×10^4 cd for most of its life. All three papers come from one group working from one recording, and none is an independent replication. Status stays open. — Sources: An et al., “Temperature of apparent natural ball lightning obtained by examination of the spectra,” Physics of Plasmas 29, 113503 (4 Nov 2022), abstract only: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0098329 · Wang et al., “Study on the luminous characteristics of a natural ball lightning,” Applied Physics Letters 112, 064103 (2018), abstract only: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5019318 · Cen, Yuan & Xue, “Observation of the Optical and Spectral Characteristics of Ball Lightning,” Physical Review Letters 112, 035001 (2014): https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.035001Fri, 04 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMTUpdate